


Another Kind of Love

by DesireeArmfeldt, orphan_account



Series: I'm Your Man [1]
Category: due South
Genre: BDSM, Developing Relationship, Dom/sub, Explicit Sexual Content, Kink Negotiation, Love, M/M, Painplay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-27
Updated: 2013-09-27
Packaged: 2017-12-27 15:12:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 29,217
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/980401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DesireeArmfeldt/pseuds/DesireeArmfeldt, https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After "Mountie on the Bounty," Ray and Fraser become more than friends. Ray's delighted with the new relationship, until he starts to feel like there's something more that Fraser wants.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Once upon a time, we thought we'd amuse ourselves by writing a short little BDSM-negotiation story. This is what we ended up writing instead.
> 
>  
> 
> I have a blanket "transform my fanworks at will" policy posted, but this one's a special case: I'd prefer no sequels/remixes of fics in this series.

Nothing in Ray’s life had ever been easy until Fraser came along.  And it’s not like Fraser made life any easier, what with their partnership starting with driving a burning car into the lake. To be fair, Ray made Fraser’s life harder, too: first just by being there instead of Fraser’s real partner, and then by being willing to throw his own career and Vecchio’s out the window because he just couldn’t let go of the past.  But Fraser stuck by Ray even though he was being a pain in the ass, helped him get his head screwed on instead of doing the easy thing, which would have been to just haul Ray’s ass back to the station to do his job.  Because it turned out the thing about Fraser was, he didn’t mind hard, as long as he was doing what was right.  And being around Fraser reminded Ray that that was why it was worth slogging through the hard stuff, which was easy to forget sometimes. So then they became partners for real, and not just partners, but friends.

Now, being Fraser’s friend and partner. . .well, that was a lot of things, but _easy_ was not one of them.  No way, José.  In fact, what it was, was crazy-making, what with the way Fraser needed to be right all the time, which was not even as bad as the way he needed to _tell_ Ray just how right he always was in contrast to just how wrong Ray always was. Not a damn word Ray said ever seemed to get through to Fraser until the day Ray lost it completely and just hauled off and slugged him.

As soon as the punch connected, Ray got that sick, guilty feeling in his gut.  Hitting your partner-and-friend was only a little bit less unforgivable than hitting your wife.  The only thing he could think of to make it—not right, exactly, but at least square in some way—was to get Fraser to hit him back.  He thought at least then they could end the whole thing cleanly, close the door and walk away, take their transfers and get on with their separate lives.  

But it turned out that walking away from Fraser wasn’t any easier than being his partner.  Maybe because Ray didn’t really want to walk away.  So it was a good thing that the gods of bizarre international crime dropped a dead pirate in their laps.  Because somewhere in between Fraser saving Ray from drowning and Ray tossing a gun into Fraser’s waiting hand like magic. . .something changed between them.  Ray couldn’t quite figure out how or why it happened, only that suddenly they were pulling together instead of apart.  And somehow, by the time they got back to Chicago, it was settled that Fraser wasn’t going back to Canada and Ray wasn’t quitting his job pretending to be Vecchio, and that unforgivable punch was. . .forgiven, after all.  And it didn’t take long after that for them both to admit that on top of the crazy partner-and-friend thing, there was something else going on between them.

That’s when things got easy.  There was kissing, and there were some words, the kind you always want to hear and say, like ‘love’ and ‘want’ and ‘let me,’ and then there was Fraser spending the night in Ray’s bed.  And then friend-and-partner became friend-and-partner-and-boyfriend.  They weren’t really advertising that part too much, because, for one thing, Ray had a feeling Welsh would put the kibosh on the Ray-and-Fraser partner thing if he knew they were also the _other_ kind of partners.  But Fraser came home with Ray almost every night, all Ray had to do was ask, like this was just what they did, now.  It wasn’t like he’d moved in or anything; he’d bring a change of clothes with him, and Ray would wake up early to drive him back to the Consulate before work.  But pretty soon, Fraser had left some spare clothes in Ray’s closet, and a toothbrush and shaving kit in the bathroom, and a dog dish for Dief under the kitchen sink.

Ray never admitted that sometimes, when he was home by himself, he just looked at Fraser’s clothes hanging there in his closet.  It was just that easy to fall so hard for someone that you’d start doing stuff that would’ve been pathetic even back in high school.  But that was mostly okay, because Fraser loved Ray back, and Fraser was not the kind of guy who decided he loved you and then changed his mind about it.  Plus, Ray knew that Fraser hadn’t just ‘forgotten’ to return Ray’s sweats he’d left over at the Consulate that one time.

Being in love made things easier between them in some ways Ray hadn’t expected.  Fraser was suddenly a lot more inclined to just let stuff slide.  If Ray said ‘ironically,’ Fraser wouldn’t come back at him with, “Actually, Ray, I think you meant to say ‘coincidentally.’”  A couple of times Ray said ‘irregardless’ in front of God and everyone in the bullpen and Fraser didn’t even blink.  Fraser didn’t second-guess Ray’s ability to navigate the wilds of Chicago nearly as much, either.

Not that they didn’t still argue about how to do things on the job.  But now that Ray didn’t feel like Fraser was judging him all the time, it was suddenly easy to listen to him instead of automatically fighting him on everything.  It was easy to admire him for doing everything well when Ray didn’t feel like Fraser was doing it to one-up him.  And it was easy to be patient with Fraser’s unique way of doing things—all those extra minutes he tacked onto each day being courteous, the things he said that no one ever really says except in the movies or on TV.  Ray could just smile and enjoy Fraser’s brand of weirdness, because it was all Fraser and Ray loved the lunatic.  Everything was just. . .easier.  Being with Fraser, being Fraser’s partner-friend-boyfriend. 

For the first few weeks, anyway, until Ray realized that the one problem, the one thing that wasn’t easy, was their sex life.  Which surprised the hell out of him, because in Ray’s experience, marriage or casual dating, the physical stuff had always been the easy part; it was the emotional stuff that tripped him up.  And honestly, it wasn’t like Ray thought that sex was the most important thing in a relationship or anything like that.  It was just, if they weren’t clicking in bed, weren’t in tune with each other, what did that say about the rest of the relationship?

It wasn’t Fraser’s fault.  Fraser didn’t have a lot of experience.  In fact, although Fraser hadn’t quite come out and said it, Ray had the impression that Fraser might not _ever_ have seriously dated someone before.  And given the not-so-much-dating thing, it wasn’t surprising that he didn’t have much sexual experience: Fraser wasn’t exactly your one-night-stand kind of guy.  

Not that Fraser was a lousy lay.  For one thing, as Ray knew from his high-school days with Stella, love could make up for a whole hell of a lot of lack of expertise.  For another thing, Fraser was good at just about anything he tried and a damn fast learner.  It didn’t take him long to figure out a bunch of Ray’s buttons, especially since Ray wasn’t trying to be mysterious about it or anything.  Besides, just seeing Fraser smile at him, just the fact of being allowed to touch him, little stuff like that was enough to practically drive Ray crazy, no special tricks required.

The problem was, Ray couldn’t figure out how to drive _Fraser_ crazy, no matter how hard he tried.  And he tried damn hard.  He’d never imagined that he was god’s gift to women—or men, for that matter—but unlike Fraser, Ray _did_ have years of sexual experience.  Not as much with guys as with chicks, sure, but enough to know what he was doing.  So he was pretty sure he knew how to show someone a pretty good time in bed.  No one had ever complained, anyway.  Not even Stella during the worst parts of their pre-divorce.  

And Fraser _did_ seem to have a good time when he was in bed with Ray (or on the couch, or in the shower, or that one time on the kitchen floor, or the two and a half times in the car).  He always seemed to be in the mood when Ray put the moves on him; plus, Fraser wasn’t exactly shy about starting the making out himself.  It didn’t take much necking to get him hard.  And it wasn’t like Ray had trouble making him come: he didn’t have a hair trigger, but he never got stuck chasing after it, either.  Afterward, he would cuddle up to Ray, all warm and relaxed and happy in the afterglow.  Which was all very nice, and the afterglow part was way more than nice.  It reminded Ray of the early days of his marriage (which was another of those maybe-pathetic things he didn’t necessarily need to share).

But still.  Fraser, a guy who got a kick out of being able to identify _gravel,_ acted like sex with Ray was like some kind of pleasant pastime.  He obviously enjoyed it, but he wasn’t over the moon about it.  Ray, on the other hand. . .That first time, Fraser made Ray come so hard he shook for a long time after, and it was the same most of the other times, too.  As far as Ray was concerned, Fraser fucking _hung_ the moon.

Ray wanted to make Fraser feel just as good as Fraser made him feel, but no matter what he did, there was still that something missing.  For a while, he held out hope that maybe it was the condoms that were keeping Fraser from really getting into it.  But after they’d jumped through all the proper preparation hoops, got tested and given the go-ahead to take off the Trojans, it didn’t seem to make a difference to Fraser.  So Ray was clean out of ideas.  It was crazy-making all over again, only unlike the arguments they used to have on the job, Ray was pretty sure the sex thing really was something that he wasn’t doing or wasn’t doing right or. . .Well, Ray wasn’t sure at all, and that made him nervous.  And Ray wasn’t any good with relationship-talk, but he wasn’t any good at just letting things lay, either.

So one night, after giving Fraser the kind of slow, teasing ravishment that never failed to reduce Stella to a quivering puddle, but which affected Fraser more like a hot bath after a day of moving furniture, Ray figured it was time to bite the bullet.

He was spooned up behind Fraser with one arm draped across his chest, enjoying a few moments of quiet.  After a little while (feeling like he was back in high school, and not the good parts of high school), he worked up the nerve to ask, “Was that okay? I mean, did you. . .have a good time?”

Fraser reached up to grasp Ray’s hand gently.

“Of course,” he murmured.  “Always,” he added, squeezing Ray’s hand.

“’Cause it’s okay to say if you don’t like something, you know.  I mean, I’m trying to pay attention and stuff, but I’m not a mind-reader, so. . .well, I just mean, if there’s anything. . .”

Fraser rolled over carefully to look at Ray kind of shyly.

“I like everything we’ve done.”  He hesitated.  “Everything you’ve done to me,” he added hopefully.

Ray lifted up on one elbow to peer down at Fraser’s face.  That was one of those sentences that pretty clearly had a silent _but_ on the end of it.  He worried his lower lip, considering.

“But there’s. . .something I’m not doing? That you’d like me to do?”

Fraser looked away, his free hand plucking at the sheet.

“There are some things that I like. . .that I want. . .that are a bit, well, esoteric is perhaps the best word.”

Ray blinked.  If Fraser thought something was _esoteric_ , it had to be pretty bizarre.  Although, on the other hand, since Fraser basically grew up under a rock, maybe he just _thought_ it was out there.

“Like what?” Ray asked, trying to sound cheerfully casual as he stroked Fraser’s shoulder soothingly.

“I might like it if. . .”  Fraser bit his lip, his eyes still averted.

“If. . .?”

“Well, I think we both know that you’re the more experienced of the two of us,” Fraser said in a rush, speeding up even more as he concluded, “But you don’t have to treat me like a blushing virgin.”

“I—what do you mean?” Ray asked, frowning.  “You think I been. . .what, talking down to you or something?”

“No,” Fraser said quickly, peeking at Ray before looking away again.  “Not  condescending, just. . .well, I’m not made of glass.”

“No shit,” Ray responded without thinking.  “You’re the unbreakable Mountie, I think we’re all clear on that by now.”  He frowned again, thinking over what Fraser had said. “I’m not trying to baby you or nothing,” he said, slowly.  “I just want to. . .be good to you. Make it good for you.”

“What if ‘good for me’ is a bit less. . .tender?” Fraser asked tentatively.

“Oh.  You like it rough and wild, that what you’re saying?”  That was kind of a turn-on of an idea.  Especially because Fraser was so tough that Ray was pretty sure there was no way he could hurt Fraser by accident, even if things got a little out of control. . .

“Rough, yes.  As for ‘wild,’ well, if that’s your pleasure, then it would be mine as well,” Fraser told Ray, his voice almost formal.

“I. . .” Ray frowned.  “I thought we were talking about _your_ pleasure, here.”

“What if your pleasure _is_ my pleasure?” Fraser asked quietly.

“Well. . .” Ray noticed he was jiggling one foot nervously and made himself stop. “That’s kind of the way it’s supposed to work, right?  Half the fun is seeing the other person having fun.  But I don’t think that’s what you’re talking about, is it?”

“No.”  Fraser was nearly whispering now.  “I. . .want you to take what you want from me.”

“But I—” Ray shut his mouth on the protest.  He’d asked what Fraser wanted and Fraser was telling him.  And if what he really wanted was. . .Well, it would at least explain why all Ray’s efforts to _give_ Fraser everything he could think of hadn’t been getting him anywhere.

“Okay,” he said slowly.  “Let me get this straight, all right?  What would make you happy—really light your rocket—is for me to push you around and, and do whatever I want to you?”

“Yes,” Fraser said on a sigh.  “I’m a sexual submissive,” he added.  Ray winced.  Fraser hadn’t figured out that technical terminology was almost never the way to make something sound sexy and fun.  And there was something about Fraser hanging a label on himself like that, like it was a diagnosis or something, that made Ray’s gut squirm.  But right now, the important thing was to make sure Fraser didn’t feel like _Ray_ was labeling him or judging him for wanting. . .what he wanted.

“Okay,” he said firmly, putting his hand back on Fraser’s shoulder.  “Okay, I think I got it.”  He rolled Fraser over onto his back, then swung a leg over to sit straddling Fraser’s hips, looking down at his face.  Fraser looked back up at him.

“Really?” Fraser asked.

“I’m not stupid,” Ray snapped, more sharply than he meant to.  “I can understand stuff when you spell it out for me.”

“Yes, Ray,” Fraser murmured softly.  Agreeably.

That startled Ray—shocked him, even, like he’d leaned against a brick wall and it had collapsed under his hand.  But he could roll with this; he knew what the game was, now, and if he maybe wasn’t sure about all the rules, well, he’d damn well figure them out as he went along.  He reached down, took Fraser’s chin in his hand, and tilted Fraser’s face so they were looking right at each other.

Fraser met Ray’s eyes, like he was obeying an implicit command.

Ray stared down at him.  _Take what you want._ What Ray _wanted_ was some lazy post-sex snuggling, or at least, that was what he’d wanted ten minutes ago.  Now. . .now he had Fraser at his mercy, or pretending to be, and that was something pretty fucking rare, worth taking advantage of—and Fraser _wanted_ him to take advantage.  But all he could think of was the way they’d both reached for each other that first time, perfectly in tune for once, how good he’d felt wrapped in Fraser’s arms, the promise of that first kiss. . .

Well, that was something he could do, anyway.  He leaned down and kissed Fraser, gently at first, but then he remembered— _rough and wild—_ and pressed his mouth down hard, forcing his tongue between Fraser’s lips, which parted to welcome Ray’s kiss passively, letting him in but not kissing him back.  Fraser moaned deep in his throat, the sound choked off almost before it escaped.

That sound sent a little thrill of anticipation through Ray.  He thrust his tongue into Fraser’s mouth again.  He gave Fraser’s chin a little shake as he pushed their mouths together, wishing Fraser would damn well give him something back.  Instead, Fraser melted under him, still passive and motionless.  Except for the erection pressing against Ray’s thigh.  Ray didn’t have Fraser’s lightning refractory period and anyway, his body wasn’t sure whether this was hot or creepy.  But he pressed his hips down against Fraser’s, rubbing Fraser’s cock between them.

“Ray,” Fraser sighed.  Ray dipped down to run his tongue lightly over Fraser’s lips before giving him a soft kiss. 

“Ray,” Fraser said again.

Rocking his hips against Fraser’s, Ray started kissing his way down Fraser’s throat, lingering above his collarbone.  Fraser groaned, but Ray couldn’t tell if it was desire or frustration or a weird combination of the two.

“Ray,” he said a third time.

 _Fuck._ Ray jerked his head up, remembering that he had a mission, here.  Shifting his weight to one hand, he shoved the other into Fraser’s hair and gripped it firmly.

“You _want_ something?” he murmured, calling up his street voice, the one he used to intimidate minor thugs.  “You telling me what to do, here?”

Fraser’s hips bucked against Ray’s, and woah, okay, this really was the way to get him hot in a hurry.

“No, Ray,” he said submissively.

“Good,” Ray hissed, grinding down harshly.  “Long as we got that straight.”

“Yes, Ray,” Fraser said, shuddering under him.  There it was again: that dreamily submissive tone that was freakily unlike any way Ray was used to _anyone_ , especially Fraser, saying his name, _ever_.

Ray shuddered himself, but not in the good, sexy kind of way.  It was just a game, he reminded himself, and it was obviously doing good things for Fraser, so there was no reason to feel creeped out. He tightened his grip on Fraser’s hair, watching for his reaction, and Fraser smiled up at him, breathing hard through parted lips, his pupils big in his wide-open eyes.

Ray made a sharp little involuntary noise in his throat at the sight of him.  He started to move in to kiss Fraser, but no, Fraser didn’t want tender, Fraser didn’t want sweet, Fraser wanted Ray to take, not give. . .He pulled away, sitting back on his heels.

“Kiss me,” he said, putting as much command into his voice as he could.

Fraser pushed himself up, lowering his eyes and tilting his face upward to brush his lips against Ray’s.

Ray forced himself not to lean into the kiss.

“That the best you can do?” he asked.  Jesus, Stella would have slapped his face by now; he would have slapped his own face by now.  Fraser just brought his mouth back to Ray’s.

“I’m sorry, Ray,” he said softly and, Jesus, _sincerely_.  Then he licked at Ray’s lips, and no, that was just wrong, that was fucking creepy, Fraser wasn’t some kind of beaten-down toy Ray had bought for the night, and Ray wasn’t—He pushed Fraser away with both hands; scrambled back and off to one side, landing on his ass on the bed.

“No, Ben, quit it, I can’t, I’m sorry, I can’t do this.”  He rubbed his hands over his face.

Fraser sat up, spine suddenly rigid.

“Of course, Ray,” he said, but his voice had gone from subservient to cautious, bordering on defensive.

“I don’t—it ain’t your fault, I just—I’m sorry.” Ray drew up his knees and wrapped his arms around them, wishing he could sink through the floor or at least had some clothes on or something.

“It’s not for everyone,” Fraser said stiffly.  “I’d hoped. . .but I should’ve known you better than that.”

Ray flinched, unable to look at him.  There wasn’t much he could say to that.  He’d never imagined he was in Fraser’s league, not really, but he’d hoped—he’d really thought he could swing it, because for whatever reason, Fraser loved him and wanted him. . .But no, he’d fucked up.  Really, it shouldn’t have been a surprise.  But it still hurt to know that Fraser pretty much expected him to be a fuck-up, like everyone else.

“Sorry,” he mumbled again.

“The fault is entirely mine,” Fraser said, reaching up to tentatively stroke Ray’s shoulder.  “It’s not for everyone.  You shouldn’t feel obliged to cater to my. . .sexual neuroses.”

 _Yes, I should,_ Ray wanted to say, except that wasn’t really right either, and he didn’t want to start an argument about this.  He looked up to meet Fraser’s eyes.

Fraser smiled hesitantly at him.

“Really, it’s all right,” Fraser said.  “I love _you_. Everything else is optional.”

Ray uncoiled and scooted over to wrap his arms around Fraser.

“And I love you, buddy,” he sighed.  “I just. . .I want to make you happy, you know? You deserve to be happy.”

“I am,” Fraser said, hugging him.  “And I want to make you happy, as well.”  He winced.  “I mean, in the sense you mean, not. . .what I was trying to do before.”

“I know what you mean,” Ray said.  He kissed Fraser gently, then let one hand drift down to Fraser’s crotch.  “Do you need. . .?  I mean, I could. . .if you want. . .”

Fraser shook his head.

“The thrill is gone,” he said.  He sounded like he was trying to make a joke out of it, but it wasn’t funny and Ray could tell Fraser didn’t really think so either.  “I think. . .could we just sleep?”

“Sleep is good,” Ray agreed.  He lowered Fraser down to the bed, then slid himself into place beside him.  He hesitated before draping an arm over Fraser like usual, but then went ahead and did it.  Fraser immediately leaned into Ray’s arms, shifting around with a contented sigh.

Ray smiled a little as he nestled his face against the back of Fraser’s shoulder.  At least this was something he knew how to do right.


	2. Chapter 2

The next couple of weeks were pretty routine at work, nothing life-threatening or even all that bizarre, at least not by the standards of a world with Fraser in it.  Most days, they were able to clock out at a normal hour and go home and have dinner and relax afterwards, go out and do something fun, or stay in and do something. . .fun.  Or both.  Which was totally great; in fact, Ray couldn’t remember the last time he’d been so happy.

Except he couldn’t quite shake off that stuff Fraser had said about what turned him on.  Fraser had pretty much said _Forget about it, it’s no big deal_ , but Ray couldn’t just forget about it, and he had a sneaky suspicion that it kind of was a big deal.  The way Fraser had been so shy, embarrassed almost, when he talked about it; the way he’d gone all stiff and reserved when Ray backed out—Ray wasn’t so dumb he couldn’t read those signals.  This wasn’t just some fun little side fantasy of Fraser’s.  Which meant that the fact that Ray couldn’t give it to him—had _refused_ him, and pretty fucking harshly, too, though Ray hadn’t meant it that way—had to hurt.  Sure, Fraser was Mr. no-really-I-don’t-mind-living-in-my-office, but just because he made self-sacrifice a lifestyle didn’t mean it didn’t cost him.  And it made Ray feel pretty crappy to think of himself as the guy Fraser was making sacrifices for, but what was he supposed to do?  He wanted to make Fraser happy, but he didn’t want to _make_ him. . .damn it all.  
  
He tried putting it out of his mind, which was okay most of the time (except for the nagging feeling that that ignoring it was the selfish, cowardly way of dealing with it).

But when he and Fraser were making love, he couldn’t help worrying about how Fraser wasn’t getting what he needed, not getting it _from Ray_.  Was he thinking about what he was missing?  Or worse, imagining that Ray thought he was some kind of pervert, or thought less of him because of what he wanted?  And meanwhile there was Ray feeling so damn good from pretty much every way Fraser touched him, and what kind of selfish, inconsiderate jerk did that make him?    
  
He tried even harder to find ways to turn Fraser on, to drive him crazy at least a little bit.  Maybe Ray couldn’t give Fraser everything he wanted, but he could at least give him _something_.  It wasn’t like Ray was a prude, after all.  He was a flexible and creative guy.  Well, okay, Fraser had said he liked it rough; that was how the whole stupid conversation had started in the first place. And rough was something Ray could give him, something Ray could even get into.  

So he stopped teasing and caressing and finessing and went after Fraser with teeth and nails, speed and pressure and drive. He fucked him harder—not that he skimped on the foreplay, or the prep, or any of that.  He’d never done that to anyone he’d slept with, not since that one time by accident back when he was learning the ropes, and he sure as hell wasn’t going to start with Fraser.  He wasn’t that guy.  But once he had Fraser open and ready under him, he took the brakes off, threw slow and sweet out the window, and concentrated on making it a wild ride.  He’d pound Fraser harder and faster than he’d ever dared to try with…anyone else, fighting not to lose himself completely to the intensity of it, to hang onto enough self-control to make sure he didn’t really hurt Fraser.

Before, they’d taken turns with the fucking, although Ray had ended up pitching a lot more often than catching.  He’d never been sure if that was because Fraser preferred getting fucked or thought Ray preferred doing the fucking, or if it just kind of happened that way, and he’d never quite gotten around to asking.  Now he was even less sure, but it was even weirder to ask, so he didn’t.  But pinning Fraser to the mattress and fucking him hard, even if maybe it wasn’t exactly everything Fraser was dreaming of, seemed like it had to be closer than a lot of other things Ray could think of.

And yeah, Fraser seemed to like the rough play well enough; maybe he even got more into it than he had with the gentler stuff.  But Ray still wasn’t getting him to the same level of bone-deep, word-robbing pleasure that Ray got from Fraser.  A lot of the time, he had a sneaking suspicion that if, in the middle of sex, he asked Fraser what he was feeling, he’d get a biology lecture, complete with footnotes and citations and fun facts about how different cultures liked to do the nasty, all in complete sentences.  
  
And then, sometimes when Fraser _did_ seem to be getting into it, he’d put the brakes on, pull back and lead Ray into something more gentle.  Which was just confusing.  Weirder, though—and worse—was the thing that sometimes happened where they’d be building up a good head of steam, and Ray would be thinking he was finally getting somewhere, really getting to Fraser, and then. . .it would just stop working.  Ray would be driving into Fraser’s body, always so hot and welcoming, and Fraser would be gasping and squirming under him, moans escaping from his mouth and sometimes the beginnings of words, but then he’d suddenly clamp his mouth shut, turn his head to the side and not even look at Ray.  Or he’d go still and start saying Ray’s name over and over, not in the good, losing-it-with-pleasure kind of way, but more like name, rank and serial number, or like he was reminding himself who the hell he was in bed with.  
  
Ray didn’t know what to do when that happened, except stop whatever it was he was doing.  Fraser would look at Ray then, look right at him with this wounded expression.  
  
“Don’t stop, Ray,” Fraser would say.  “Just. . .don’t stop.”    
  
So Ray would start up again, not quite so rough, and Fraser would look relieved and he’d say Ray’s name again, but this time he’d sound like he usually did during sex, affectionate or tender or maybe even a little impatient.  (Ray had no idea how many possible ways there were to say his name, but Fraser had a million of them and Ray couldn’t tell what half of the variations meant.)  And there would be orgasms and snuggling on the other side, and everything would seem to be pretty much okay, but Ray just wished he knew what the hell he’d done wrong.  
  
After that happened a couple of times, Ray didn’t dare to push the rough play too hard anymore, which meant they were back to pleasant-but-not-amazing sex, at least on Fraser’s side.  And Ray was pretty much out of ideas for how to turn Fraser’s crank.  
  
He tried to tell himself not to freak out about it.  Okay, fine, they weren’t porn stars, but that shouldn’t matter: they were having a good time, and they were in love, which was the important thing, right?  But it didn’t help.  He couldn’t stop thinking about how it had been with Stella.  First, fabulous world-rocking sex (and okay, the first few years had been clueless awkward learning-on-the-job sex, but still, world-rocking).  Then nice, happy, comfortable, loving sex with occasional fireworks.  Then a horrible mixture of hardly any sex at all with spikes of desperate, unhappy sex or angry, mind-blowing sex.  And then he was out on his ass.  But that had taken _years_ ; he and Fraser had barely had _weeks_ together, this ought to be the starry-eyed honeymoon rainbows-and-rockets time.  Surely they couldn’t be on the downhill slope already, so fucking _fast_. . .  
  
No, that was stupid, he was being dumb and paranoid.  Fraser loved him; he could tell.  If he wasn’t getting off on sex as much as Ray hoped, well, that was a problem they could solve.  Somehow.  Of course, after the way Ray had responded last time Fraser had tried to talk about what he liked to do in bed. . .yeah, Fraser probably wasn’t going to bring up anything like that again real soon.  
  
So, okay, fine. It was Ray’s job to start the conversation. That was fine. He could do that.

It wasn’t the kind of conversation he could just jump into any old time, though.  He needed a plan.  He figured he’d bring it up on Friday night, once they got home.  They weren’t scheduled for anything until Monday morning.

Naturally, Friday got kind of screwed up because of a purse snatcher resulting in a Fraser-type urban sprint (Ray didn’t quite make the Dumpster Hurdle and Fraser somehow ended up covered in Windex) and there was a lot of cleanup (which meant Ray had to keep Frannie away from the men’s shower and Turnbull had to make an appearance at the 27th to drop off a fresh uniform) and even more paperwork.  But they finally made it back to Ray’s place, got a pizza and watched _Sports Center_ (complete with Fraser muttering “Canadian” every time Steve Nash or Rick Fox got a mention).  When Rich and Stu started talking about cycling, Fraser finally relaxed against the couch, looking pretty approachable, so Ray figured he’d go ahead and approach.

Of course, by this point, after having been thinking about it for hours (days), Ray himself was wound up to the point where he was fidgeting like crazy, not knowing what to do with his hands.  He didn’t want to spook Fraser with his own twitchiness, so he took Fraser’s hand, lacing their fingers together.  With his other hand, he traced little circles around Fraser’s knuckles.  Fraser looked at him and smiled, squeezing his hand back.

Ray cleared his throat.

“Listen, Ben, I’ve, um, been thinking. . .”

Fraser nodded, somehow managing to look more alert without moving a muscle.

“Or, well, wondering, really,” Ray went on, knowing he sounded like an idiot. “If you. . .I mean, it seems like. . .”   _Use your words, Ray._  He took a breath and spat out what was on his mind.  “You said it was okay to keep doing it like we’ve been doing it.  Um, sex, I mean.  But I want it to be more than just okay, you know?  I mean, for me, it is, it’s great, but. . .”  He shrugged and looked down at his hands, which were still playing with Fraser’s fingers.

“But. . .what, Ray?” Fraser asked, sounding confused.  “You like it, I like it, we seem to have found a groove, as you might put it, so I fail to see what you’re wondering about.”

“Do you, though? Like it?” Ray asked.  Jesus, he sounded like someone’s kid brother, but he really did need to know.

“Of course I do. Why would I do something I didn’t like?”

“All kinds of reasons.  Your job at the Consulate is pretty much nothing but things you don’t like, but you do those.”

“You made it very clear that you don’t want me to do anything I don’t like, just to please you,” Fraser said stiffly, turning his face away from Ray to look out the window.

Ray’s face got hot, but he gave Fraser’s hand a gentle squeeze and pushed onward: “See, that’s exactly my point.  There’s reasons you might do it.  So it wasn’t a dumb question.”

“Do you really want to reopen this box, Ray?”  Fraser sounded almost tired.  And no, Ray didn’t really want to think about this stuff, but. . .

“Yeah,” he said softly.  “I want to make you as happy in bed as you make me.  And if that’s the box we got to open to figure out how to do that, then yeah, let’s crack that sucker.”

Fraser shrugged.

“Fine,” he said tightly.  “There are some things I like that are outside the mainstream of sexual expression.  You don’t like them.  How is further discussion going to change that?”

“I don’t know.”  Ray fought the impulse to pull his hands back from Fraser’s.  “All I know is, you’re giving me less chance here than you give your average bank robber.”

“What chance do you want, Ray?  Am I supposed to be asking questions or providing answers?”

“I. . .does it got to be one or the other?  Couldn’t we, like, have a conversation?”  Ray sighed.  “Look, I just. . .I was acting without thinking, the other night.  That’s what I do, you know that.”

“I disagree with those statements on a number of levels,” Fraser said.  “The most germane to this discussion is that the other night, it was when you _started_ thinking that you realized you couldn’t give me what I had asked for.”

Ray frowned, trying to remember.

“No, I—no, see, what I mean is, I didn’t think it _through_.  I just, I tried something, and it didn’t work, and I kind of freaked out, but. . .”  He shrugged.  “I don’t know, just maybe, if we could talk it though, then. . .maybe it’s not so all or nothing?”

Fraser pulled his hand from Ray’s, standing up to pace over the rug that covered Ray’s dancing feet.

“You initiated this conversation.  What do you want to know?”

Ray managed not to snap, _This isn’t an interrogation, goddamnit._  He ran his hands through his hair, trying to think what he could say to stop this from turning into a fight.

“Well. . . I guess I don’t really understand _why_.”   _Oh, great.  Why does anyone like anything?_  “I mean, you said this word, submissive,”—At least he got the word out without stumbling over it—“But I don’t know what that really means to you.”

“To put it baldly, it means I want you to tell me what to do, explicitly and with some forcefulness, and to make it clear that failure has immediate consequences, and that success is rewarded,” Fraser said and, although he was turned partly away from Ray, Ray was pretty sure that he was blushing.  “And that my idea of consequences and rewards might be a little less than traditional.”

Ray boggled.

“Put it that way, it sounds a lot like your job.  The official Consulate-and-Ice-Queen part, I mean.  Not the jumping-off-roofs part.”  Which maybe made sense, in a weird way, except the idea of wanting sex to be like your job made Ray’s brain hurt.  “But I would’ve thought you’d want sex to be. . .a chance to unwind.  Let your hair down.  You know, maybe go a little crazy.”

“And wanting my lover to order me around, to hurt me, to say and do things to me that others would find unpleasant and degrading. . .that’s not going a little crazy?” Fraser asked, sounding maybe a little amused.  Which was a good thing, major progress, so Ray tried real hard not to look queasy as he wondered what exactly Fraser meant by _unpleasant and degrading_.

“Maybe. . .kind of a little eccentric?” he offered tentatively, not sure if he was supposed to go with the joke or not.

“Precisely so,” Fraser agreed.  “But what I like. . .it’s not for everyone.  I’m well aware I’m in a minority.”

“Stop talking about everyone,” said Ray.  “This is about you and me.”

“In that case,” Fraser said, retreating to formality again, “I’m in a fifty percent minority.”

Ray squinched his eyes shut for a second.

“What—no—that doesn’t even make sense.  That’s just stupid.  You can’t be a minority if you’re fifty percent.”

“Not literally.  But when one half of the population finds the preference unacceptable, and his opinion is in line with the broader majority out there,” Fraser gestured to the window, “Then fifty percent is a kind of minority.”

Ray flung himself to his feet, nearly tripping over the coffee table.

“No, that ain’t how it works at all!  Who the hell cares about the broader majority of dumbfucks out there?  Who says they get to vote on what you and me do in our own bedroom?  What the hell do they have to do with anything?” 

He got right up in Fraser’s face.  “Look, I already know you’re a freak, I figured that out about ten minutes after I met you.  And I fell in love with you knowing that.  So you don’t get to use that as an argument for why what you want don’t count.  Find something else, or stop trying to talk me _out_ of figuring out how to get you what you need.”

“If you can’t give me what I want then it _doesn’t_ count,” Fraser insisted heatedly.  “By your own logic, even.  I love you, and I don’t want you to do things that make you uncomfortable or worse.  So I’ll learn to live without them.  Because your comfort, your happiness. . .they matter to me, Ray.  They mean _everything_ to me.”

“Okay, okay.  Okay,” Ray said softly, because Jesus, what was he supposed to say to that?  He started to reach up to touch Fraser’s face, but found himself spinning on his heel, taking a couple of steps away so he could whirl back again.

“No, you know what, that’s bullshit.  I’m not saying you don’t mean it, but it just ain’t true.  Trust me, I’ve been there, I’ve felt that way, it doesn’t fucking work.  You can’t—you want what you want, and yeah, you can take that and stuff it in a trashcan, but it won’t make you happy, and you won’t be able to make _me_ happy that way, either.  I _know._ ”  He stared into Fraser’s eyes, their noses practically touching, hoping he could make Fraser get it through sheer willpower.

“And neither can you force yourself to do things that, to a man of your background, probably seem more like abuse than love,” Fraser said, not giving any ground.

Ray refused to step back, or to be distracted by asking what the hell that was supposed to mean, _his background_?  He kept his eyes locked on Fraser’s as he said quietly, “So you tell me how it’s not—not abuse. Because I really want to know.”

“Because I want it.  Because I don’t want you to use it to control any other aspect of my life.  Because I don’t want either of us to feel diminished by it.”

“You want to be hurt and degraded and not feel diminished by that?”

Fraser sighed.

“Yes, Ray.  Those things don’t make me feel diminished, not outside the moment and frequently not even within it, either.”

Ray tried to imagine what that could feel like, but he came up blank.  He’d humiliated himself plenty of times for Stella or for other people he loved or wanted—sometimes by accident, sometimes out of desperation.  Let other people humiliate him while he tried to please them, that too.  Sometimes it had even gotten him the attention he’d been looking for. But it had never felt _good_ , not the actual humiliation part.  And it had never gotten him what he really wanted in the end.

But on the other hand, Ray couldn’t imagine what it was like to be Fraser in most ways, anyhow, so maybe this wasn’t so different.

“Okay,” he said slowly.  “I don’t get it, but I believe you.”  He took a breath and blew it out again, rubbing the back of his neck.  “But you don’t. . .I mean, there’s more to it than that, there’s got to be.  It’s not just anything goes.  Because you say you want to be—to be hurt, to be treated rough, but you don’t always like it when I play rough.  Right?”

“It’s not that I don’t like it, Ray.  It’s that we haven’t really _talked_ about it.  You just start doing it, and I want to just fall into it, but that wouldn’t be fair to either of us.”

“You can always tell me if I’m doing something you don’t like,” said Ray, frowning.

“I know,” Fraser said.  “But I’m used to doing this as a deliberate act that all parties have agreed to in advance, with pre-established limits.”

“You mean rough sex?  Or. . .?”

“It’s generally been more formal than that for me.  I’m accustomed to respond to being treated roughly by falling into certain rather formalized patterns.  And you don’t want to do that.”

“Stop telling me what I want and don’t want, for Christ’s sake.  We’re just talking right now.  Exploring the possibilities.  Okay?”

“And I’m trying to explain why talking to explore the possibilities has to be the _first_ thing we do.  Look what happened when we tried it without talking first.”

_I screwed up in a big way, right._

Looking at his feet, Ray muttered, “So, fine, we’re both saying we should talk about it, so we’re talking about it.”  Damn it, that sounded sulky, he was going to set Fraser off again if he wasn’t careful.  He hastily added, “So, okay, you _do_ like it rough, then.  And. . .and not just that, but other stuff, too.  Like you said.  But you don’t want. . .I mean, there’s a line somewhere, right?”

“Of course there’s a line,” Fraser said emphatically.  “Several, in fact.  And the most important line is the one that neither partner wants to cross.  Including. . .no, really, _especially_ if one partner doesn’t want to express his sexuality that way at all.”

“This partner’s _trying_ to explore possibilities.  Did we not just agree on that?”

“And this partner thanks you for it.  But it is important to understand that the most basic limit is that _either_ partner has the right to say ‘no’ to anything at any time.”

Which made it exactly no different from any other kind of sex, but Ray was not going to let himself get dragged into an argument when he’d just managed to drag them out of one.  It wasn’t like he actually disagreed with Fraser’s point; he just wished Fraser would stop saying ‘no’ on Ray’s behalf.  He was perfectly capable of saying it for himself.

“Okay, so that’s number one,” he said, as matter-of-factly as he could.  He raised his index finger.  “What’s next?”

“The next lines are about personal preference.  What one actively desires, what one will accept, what one will merely tolerate and what one absolutely refuses to do.”

Ray was about to protest that he hadn’t asked for an academic lecture, when he realized that he was feeling irritated over Fraser’s Fraser-ish formality instead of creeped-out.  So maybe Fraser had the right idea after all.

“Okay, sure, that makes sense.”  He took Fraser’s hand and tugged him back towards the couch.  “But what I meant was, where are those lines for you?  Or, how would I figure that out?  Because you couldn’t possibly give me a list of _everything_ in advance.”

Fraser laughed, sounding honestly amused.

“You’d be surprised,” he said.  “If one enters into formal negotiations, there are checklists available that are quite comprehensive.”

“Oh, for—”  Ray spluttered with laughter himself.   “Your sex life requires _paperwork_? You’re kidding me!”

Fraser looked affronted, but only for a second.

“My needs are not that complex and you and I aren’t strangers,” he said with a laugh.  “No three hundred item questionnaire required.”

“What if one of my don’t-cross-’em lines is not doing paperwork?”  Ray smiled to make sure Fraser knew he was teasing.

“Paperwork isn’t a hard limit for me,” Fraser said lightly.  “Unfortunately, if we were to decide checklists were necessary, your ordering me to complete one on your behalf would rather undermine the point.”

Ray snorted.   He sat down with one foot on the couch and his back against the armrest, and pulled Fraser down to recline against his chest.

“However, I don’t think that would be necessary for us,” Fraser said carefully.  “In fact, I think it would be counter-productive.  If I were to just push a list at you, you would probably run screaming for the hills before you got to the second page.”  He smiled wryly.  “ _I_ nearly did the first time I read one and pursuing such experiences had been my own idea.”

“How. . .much experience do you have with this stuff, anyway?” asked Ray.  He hadn’t thought Fraser had all that much experience with sex, period, but he sure sounded like he knew what he was talking about, here.  Come to think of it, though, if Fraser had a history of experimenting with three-hundred-item sexual checklists, that would explain how come he was already so good at the more garden-variety items he and Ray had been doing together.

“I. . .well, and this was before we met, something happened that made me feel diminished by my own feelings,” Fraser said, looking down at the floor.  “I did things I was deeply ashamed of, and, as I later sought to try understand that experience, I wondered if I could somehow transform the humiliation my own desires had brought me to into a deliberately sought-after experience.  To control those feelings, to master them by experiencing them on my terms rather than. . .someone else’s.”

Biting his lips, Ray hugged Fraser a little more firmly.  There was obviously something bad there, and Ray wished he could just kiss that old darkness away, but a) he knew from experience that it didn’t work that way, and b) obviously that wasn’t the kind of comfort Fraser wanted from him.  Besides, Fraser was a stronger, more together guy than Ray was, so who was Ray to knock Fraser’s whatever-doesn’t-kill-me-makes-me-stronger approach?  It obviously beat Ray’s drunken fantasies about his ex-wife and hitting on chicks ten years too young for him.  Or crushing on his partner, though that seemed to be working out okay for Ray in the end.

“So. . .” Ray said tentatively, feeling his way through the thought as he spoke.  “What you said before. . .maybe you do want to be wild and crazy, but you want to. . .to like put the crazy in a box of rules so it can’t. . .go out of bounds?”

Fraser nodded vigorously.

“Yes, rules.  Boundaries.  Limits.  No need for paperwork as such, I don’t think.  If you actually want to try this, of course.”

Ray blinked, not sure when or how Fraser had gone from assuming Ray didn’t want to do this to assuming he _did_ , but not wanting to put Fraser back on the defensive, either.  He still wasn’t sure what he did want, except he knew he needed to do _something_ , find some way to meet Fraser halfway, at least.

“Well. . . I’m not so much of a rules guy, you know that, but if you want rules, I can do rules, I guess.  Enforce them,” he said, wincing a little at the idea of playing cop in the bedroom, but he _could_ , cop was something he knew how to do.  “But you never said what rules, or where your—your lines are.  I still don’t really know what you need me to do.   To do to you.”

Fraser squirmed uncomfortably in Ray’s arms, although he didn’t seem to actually be trying to get loose.  Ray relaxed his grip, letting his hands rest lightly on Fraser so that Fraser could move if he wanted to but wouldn’t feel like Ray was pushing him away.

“I. . .the rules. . .what I want. . .well, the specifics don’t have to come first as such,” Fraser said.

“What comes first, then?” Ray asked, wondering if he’d said something wrong, or if Fraser was just worried about freaking Ray out with what he wanted.

“A sincere, unforced agreement that this is legitimately something we both want,” said Fraser.  “Or want to try.”

“But I don’t. . .” Ray sighed.  “I can’t say I want to try it if I don’t know what _it_ is.  I mean. . .you’ve said a whole lot of things, and some of them sound more okay than others, and I don’t know how to say yes or no without knowing where at least some of the lines are.  Like if you want me to. . .break your jaw or something—” And God, he hoped he’d picked an extreme enough example.  “—Then, no, I can’t do that.  If all you want is a slap on the ass, no problem.”

“If all you’re willing to do is slap my ass, then that _is_ your limit,” Fraser said.  “Which I am bound to respect.”

“For God’s sake, I’m going to kick you in the head in a second,” Ray snapped.  Fraser just smiled fondly at him, which made Ray wonder if Fraser felt the same way about Ray getting grouchy as Ray felt about Fraser getting lecturey.  

“Look,” he said, trying for a reasonable tone of voice.  “You were saying, about the different kinds of lines.  Well, what I actively want, I haven’t made a list or nothing, but obviously if I had, this stuff wouldn’t have been on it.  But the point is to match up what one guy wants with how far the other one’s willing to go, right?  I mean, both directions, but. . .if you want me to paint you green and I’m okay with doing that even if it’s not my most favorite thing, then that’s a win?”

“Well, yes. But the limit doesn’t have to be the end point.”

“Sorry, what?”

Fraser closed his eyes, obviously gathering his thoughts.

“Just as an example, you could set your limit as ‘I am willing to slap your ass with my bare hand but no more than that,’” he said, opening his eyes again to look directly at Ray.  “And, _if_ that doesn’t make you too uncomfortable, you can increase the limit. Draw a new line.”

“Oh.  Well, sure.  It would be weird to say you couldn’t ever decide you wanted to do something else.  Especially because I just don’t know, up-front, what exactly I’m going to like or not like.  I haven’t done any of this stuff before.  Which is my point.  You have, you know what you want, so I’m asking you, what are we talking about here?  Because we’re trying to find that stuff that’s inside the lines, what you want that I’m okay with doing, right?  Except I’m thinking maybe part of the problem here is you don’t like that idea.  I mean, doing something you want, that I’m only okay with.”

Fraser sighed. 

“Remember when we first talked about this and you asked me if I felt you were being patronizing to me during sex?”

“Yeah,” said Ray.

“Perhaps I’m worried that’s what it will feel like, if you tolerate an activity solely for my sake.”

“But ain’t that what you’re doing now?  Doing what I want, when you’re just okay with it?”

Fraser started to protest, then looked thoughtful.

“It doesn’t feel like it,” he said.  “But perhaps that analysis is more astute than I would like it to be.”

“I don’t want this to be one-sided either,” said Ray, trying not to feel too disappointed by Fraser’s answer, which was basically what he’d expected; not as bad, even.  “Give and take, that’s what it’s all about, right?  And. . .listen, I meant what I said the other night.  Part of what does it for me is knowing that I’m doing it for you.  If I can tell you’re really turned on, then whatever we’re doing, that makes it better for me.”

“I realize this is presumptuous, Ray,” Fraser said cautiously.  “But what if you find that you like it for its own sake?”

“I. . .that would be a good thing, right?”  Obviously Fraser thought this was some kind of trick question, but Ray wasn’t spotting the trick.

“I went out looking for something.  I researched it thoroughly beforehand, thought about it, fantasized about it.  And still. . .some of my reactions, some of the things I liked. . .they shocked me.  Made me feel ashamed, in the sense of corrupted and diminished as a man.  I’ve learned to accept some of those desires without self-condemnation, but there are some I can still barely admit to myself.”

Ray put his arms back around Fraser and hugged him.  If Fraser didn’t like it he could damn well tell Ray to knock it off.

“I don’t know, okay?” he said softly, resting his chin on Fraser’s shoulder.  “I don’t know what happens then.  But. . .if there’s stuff about me I don’t like, I don’t see how it makes me a better person to not know that.”

“If the only reason you learn about it is because you were trying to please me. . .”  Fraser shrugged, not trying to shake off Ray’s embrace but apparently having trouble expressing himself.  “I don’t want to. . .corrupt you, Ray.”

“No, that’s fair,” said Ray.  “Although most people would laugh in your face if they heard _you_ worrying about corrupting _me_ ,” he added, smiling a little.  “And actually, talking about that. . .Here’s one line I want to draw.  I don’t want to do anything that’s going to make you ashamed—diminished, like you said just now.  And I’m going to need you to not. . .put those things on the table.  I don’t mean don’t talk about them.  You can talk about anything you want— _I’ll_ talk about anything you want.  And if you. . .change. . .what you can live with, that’s fine, too.  Like you said, the lines can move.  Just. . .I don’t want to corrupt you, either.”

“I’m trying to move toward self-acceptance on some of the things I find arousing.  But, speaking to your earlier point, I think, even though I deliberately chose to explore this aspect of my sexuality, I would probably, on the whole, have preferred not to have learned certain things about myself.”

For a while, Ray couldn’t think of anything to say.  It wasn’t like Fraser was wrong.  Life would have been easier, and Ray would have been happier, if he’d never found out any of this stuff about Fraser, and it was obvious he didn’t know the whole story yet, either.  Ray was pretty sure he wasn’t going to wake up in the morning and discover he secretly got off on smacking his lover around and humiliating him, but what if he did end up learning stuff about himself that he didn’t like?  Maybe they’d both be better off not knowing that kind of crap. 

But no, see, the problem was that not knowing about something didn’t make it not true.  He hadn’t been happy before, when he didn’t know why he couldn’t make Fraser happy in bed.  And anyway, he knew _now;_ they couldn’t stuff that monkey back into the box.  Even if they could, they’d be stuck with Fraser not getting what he needed, and _that_ was a recipe for nothing good at all.

“Look,” he said, finally. “I ain’t saying you’re wrong to worry about that.  But I just don’t see. . .you’re where you are, right?  No going back.  So either I can try and find some way to join you over where you are, or I can stay over here by myself and we can both end up pretty fucking lonely.  I don’t know what it’s like over on your side of the tracks, but I know for sure that other deal sucks rocks.”

Which was the important thing, when he came right down to it.  If he had to choose between potluck with Fraser or a sure thing without him. . .well, that was no choice at all.

Fraser took a deep breath.

“All right, then,” he said.  “What does it mean, though, that I’m not to put certain things on the table?”

“I mean. . .I was going to say, don’t ask me to do anything you’re ashamed of,” said Ray.  “But I figured, the way this works, probably you wouldn’t be _asking_ , anyway.  I don’t know, on your list of lines, or however you let me know where the boundaries are, just. . .leave that stuff outside, okay?”

“Okay,” Fraser said.  He sounded like he was ticking an item off some mental list.  “I won’t ask you to do things that I know I find shameful.  So, then, how do I handle the things I already specifically know I don’t want?”

“Yeah, you shouldn’t make me do things you know you don’t want either, that’s stupid,” said Ray.  “What do you mean, how do you handle them?”

“If I say I don’t want, oh, I don’t know, to wear a gas mask in a sexual situation, how would you feel about that?”

“I’d think that was one less thing to worry about, except I wouldn’t have been worrying about that in the first place,” said Ray.  “I mean, I know you just picked that example to be goofy, but I’m still not sure what you’re asking.  If there’s stuff you don’t want, I want to know about that.  I sure don’t want to accidentally do something you already know you don’t like.”

“People do have that as a fetish, though,” Fraser said.  “And yes, I picked it because it’s an idea I find borderline repellant and I highly doubted that you would find it enticing.  But I have tried things that were similarly outside the mainstream, and I can’t help but wonder how you would feel to learn that about me.” 

It was a fair question, because Ray wasn’t at all sure how he felt about even the hints he was starting to put together about just how much Fraser had tried and how many people he’d tried it with.  Fraser had claimed Ray was the more experienced one, here, but Ray was beginning to think that was a crock.  Was Fraser seriously so worried about Ray judging him that he’d outright lie about his past experience?  Ray couldn’t imagine that.  Or maybe Fraser thought the only statistic that counted was raw number of times getting laid, and figured Ray still had him beat on that score.  Hard to beat ten years of marriage.  But none of that was what Fraser needed to hear right now.

“Well. . .look at it this way,” Ray said carefully.  “Would it be easier for you to start with telling me about some things you _do_ want or some things you _don’t_ want?  ’Cause you’re going to have to tell me _something_ or we’re never going to get anywhere.  I’m not just wading in blind, here.”

“I might feel safer if _you_ told _me_ something you’re willing to try.  You mentioned spanking me.  Was that a hypothetical?”

“I’d do that,” Ray said, his cheeks heating up a little.  It wasn’t even that the idea was so embarrassing, but sitting there discussing it that way kind of was.

“How would you feel about gagging me?”

“You mean, like, tying something over your mouth?”  Ray figured it was better to sound like an idiot than to get it wrong.

“Or some other means of preventing me from speaking,” Fraser said.

“Sure, I guess so.  As long as you don’t mean choking you or like that.”

Fraser frowned a little.

“Do you know what a safeword is, Ray?”

The sudden change of topic threw Ray off, but only for a second.  He wasn’t sure if Fraser was trying to change the subject or if there was some perfectly logical connection in his mind, but it didn’t really matter.  Fraser was talking, that was the important thing.

“Sure, it’s like a word that means no-really-I-mean-no, if you’re doing something where the point is that you might say no but not really mean it.”

“Exactly.  And, in the event that someone is gagged, there’s generally a non-verbal signal that can be used.”

“Makes sense,” said Ray, nodding.

“Did you also realize that a safeword goes both ways?”

Ray frowned.

“I. . .Oh.  You mean, we’d both have one.  Right?”

“You have the same right to call things off as I do, yes.”

“That would be. . .good.”  Ray worked one hand free so he could run it up and down Fraser’s upper arm.  “I. . .fucked that up, the other night.  Wasn’t fair to you.  I’m sorry about that.”

Fraser frowned.

“In what manner did this alleged fuck-up occur?”  Fraser’s ultra-polite tone made Ray tense up for a second before he realized that Fraser was trying to be funny.  

“I should’ve. . .shouldn’t have shoved you away like you were doing something wrong when you were just doing what I told you.  Should’ve. . .I don’t know.  Used my fucking words,” Ray sighed.

“And I should’ve insisted on some sort of negotiation instead of trusting chance,” Fraser responded.

“Yeah, maybe so.  Well, but okay, we’re doing that now, so. . .forgive and forget?” Ray offered.

“Both would please me immeasurably,” Fraser said.  “And, incidentally, my no means no and my yes means yes, to borrow a phrase that was never intended to be deployed in this sort of conversation.”

“Sorry, could you say that less fancy?” Ray asked.  “Because I thought you wanted the kind of thing where no doesn’t always mean no.”

“For a lot of people, saying no and being ignored is part of the allure.  But when I say no, that’s exactly what I mean.”

“Oh.  Then. . .what do you say when you mean no-but-really-yes?  Or do?” Ray asked.

“No-but-really-yes isn’t what I’m looking for,” Fraser said.  “Unless. . .I suppose if you want to hear no-but-really-yes, I could do that.  In which case my safeword is, well, actually it’s ‘safeword.’  I can be rather literal at times.”

“No,” said Ray, focusing on the important point instead of thinking too hard about Fraser using a safeword with. . .somebody.  “I got no interest in forcing you like that, real or pretend.”

Fraser pulled Ray’s arms around him in a gentle hug.

“Thank you,” he said quietly.

Ray squeezed Fraser, not too tight.  He wasn’t sure just what Fraser was thanking him for: agreeing not to play no-but-really-yes, or not wanting to force Fraser in the first place, or maybe just the fact that they were having this conversation at all.

After a little while, he asked hesitantly, “Do you ever say no? Have you ever?”

“I’ve never had to use my safeword,” Fraser said.  “But I’ve certainly said no to things that I found distasteful.”

Ray felt his shoulders relax a little.  He slid one hand down to rest lightly on Fraser’s stomach.

“Like what?” he asked softly.  Fraser tensed under his hand.

“I did not enjoy playing doctor nearly as much as I thought I would,” he said tightly.

Ray stroked Fraser’s stomach slowly in what he hoped was a soothing way.

“How come?”

“I don’t know,” Fraser said.  “I had a visceral reaction, and I’m still not sure if it was to the stirrups or the speculum.  The individual elements all seemed acceptable, but the complete reality was not.”  He shuddered.

“Well, I can’t say that’s something I’d be likely to ask you for,” Ray said as he kept on gently rubbing Fraser’s belly.  “Not that it sounds so horrifying, either.”  It didn’t sound either creepy or hot, really, just kind of strange.

“That was what was so disturbing about it,” Fraser said.  “That I had no idea why I hated it so much.  Fortunately, my wishes were respected; the scene ended quickly and my friend and I went out for pancakes instead.”

Ray didn’t want to think too hard either about Fraser being freaked out or about the kind of ‘friends’ he’d done this stuff with.  Although at least it sounded like this one had been looking out for Fraser.  So he hastily asked the first hopefully-not-too-loaded question that popped into his head.

“Is that. . .do you usually like to, uh, roleplay, I guess you’d call it?  Pretending to be someone else, or at least, something you’re not, like a doctor or whatever?”

“Not generally,” Fraser said.  “Perhaps the artifice of being a false patient was part of the reason the scene failed.”

Ray nodded, his hair brushing against Fraser’s.

“So. . .would you tell me something you do like?  Doesn’t have to be anything big and scary.”

“I like being held down,” Fraser said.

“I can do that,” Ray replied.  That was easy enough.

“I like being told what to expect, what to do.”

“What to expect. . .like, you want me to tell you what I’m going to do before I do it?”  Ray mostly liked to be surprised, himself, but he could see where Fraser might prefer to be prepared.

“Yes,” Fraser said.  “But being told that. . .that what happens next is not for me to know or anticipate, because that’s how you want it. . .”  Fraser’s voice trailed off and he shivered in Ray’s arms, but it felt like a good kind of shiver.

“That’s good?” Ray murmured, nuzzling Fraser’s ear.

“Yes,” Fraser murmured.  “The feeling of inevitability, that my partner’s desire for me is inexorable, a force of nature to be ridden out like a snowstorm. . .That’s very good, Ray.”

Ray’s breath caught and his face heated up. It was the heat in Fraser’s quiet voice that got to him, more than the words, but what he’d said. . .Ray did feel like that, a lot of the time, like his lust was some kind of tidal wave sweeping him away, like it could drown both of them if he wasn’t careful, and there was something about hearing Fraser _say_ it like that. . .

“But _asking_ you before I do something would be bad,” he said, slipping his hand under Fraser’s shirt to stroke the skin of his stomach, now.  “Because this is. . .all about what _I_ want.  What I want to do to you.  What I need from you.”

“Yes, Ray,” Fraser said dreamily.

Ray slid his other hand under Fraser’s shirt and ran them both over the skin of Fraser’s torso as he nibbled at Fraser’s ear.  In this position, mostly trapped under Fraser, he didn’t have a lot of options, and anyway, he wasn’t sure how to start, paralyzed between two opposite options.  Force of nature sounded easier than drill sergeant, though, so he pulled Fraser close against him, thrusting his hips against Fraser’s ass.

“Good,” he whispered.  “’Cause I want a whole fucking lot from you, my friend.”

“I want to give it to you. For you to take it from me,” Fraser said.  “But. . .I should warn you,” he added, sounding dreamy and serious at the same time.

Ray froze, trying to pull his attention back to serious-conversation-land.

“What?”

“Sometimes it makes me cry,” Fraser said quietly.  “I like that.  It’s not pain or distress.  It. . .I hope it doesn’t alarm you.”

Ray bit his tongue, not that he had any idea what he could say to that anyway.   _Alarm_ wasn’t really the word, although he could imagine getting pretty fucking freaked out if something like that had happened and Fraser _hadn’t_ warned him.  This was seeming less and less like some weird sex thing Fraser happened to like, and more like. . .something more serious and scarier.  But if so, then Fraser needed Ray all the more, and needed to be able to trust him, because who the hell else was he going to trust with this?

He took a breath.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” he said.  And then, because damn it, he needed Fraser to know at least a little of what he was feeling, he kissed him very softly above the ear and whispered, “Thanks.”

“Just. . .if I do, please don’t belittle me for it,” Fraser asked softly.

Ray felt a rush of outrage that Fraser would even think he might do something like that—but no, if Fraser wanted to be _belittled_ in general (did he? was that part of _unpleasant and degrading?_ ) _,_ then it was a fair point to make.

“I won’t,” he promised.  That was one promise he wasn’t going to have any problem keeping, at least.

“Thank you,” Fraser said, closing his eyes and relaxing completely against Ray.

He felt much more like tucking Fraser into bed and cuddling him to sleep than fucking him through the floor.  Or maybe making very slow and tender love to him.  But he wasn’t going to yank the rug out from under Fraser _again_ , not after all this.  Not when Fraser was trusting Ray to take care of him the way he wanted to be taken care of.

So he lowered his head and gave Fraser an experimental bite on the neck, harder than he ever would have dared with Stella, hard enough to maybe leave a mark.  Fraser arched against him.

“Yes,” he told Ray, and “Please,” and something that wasn’t even a word, or at least not one Ray recognized.

Ray kicked out his foot to shove the coffee table out of the way, then rolled off the couch, toppling Fraser to the floor under him, hoping Fraser had the sense not to break his head.  Fraser curled up, keeping his head, neck and shoulders from hitting the floor. He stretched his neck back, tilting his chin to one side, exposing his unbitten skin to Ray.

Ray could take a hint when it was shoved at him like that.  Scrambling up on his knees, he grabbed Fraser’s wrists and pinned them to the floor, then bent down to bite Fraser again.  This time he did leave toothmarks: he could see them when he raised his head.

“Tell me what you want,” Fraser pleaded softly.  “Tell me what I can give you.”

Ray gritted his teeth.  That voice meant he was doing this _right_ , not making his lover miserable.

“You’re wearing too fucking many clothes,” he said, letting go of Fraser’s hands and sitting back on his heels, still straddling Fraser’s legs **.**   “Do something about that.”

Fraser gave him a quick grin.

“Would you prefer expediency or finesse, Ray?” he asked, and holy fuck if he didn’t sound subservient _and_ naughty at the same time.  But that sentence full of ten-dollar words made Ray feel a lot better: even though Fraser was acting almost like he was high or something, he was still the Fraser Ray knew.

“That second thing,” said Ray, not actually moving to let Fraser up. 

Fraser slid his suspenders off his shoulders, not quickly but not coyly either.  He brought his hands to his fly and actually used them to frame himself before undoing his pants.  Then he arched his ass several inches off the floor, more than he needed to just to pull his pants down over his hips.  As he lowered his ass again, he curled his torso up and forward to push his pants all the way off, his hands sliding between Ray’s legs, his face pressing briefly against Ray’s fly.  Ray’s dick stirred a little at the contact.

Ray gaped at Fraser’s performance, enjoying both the playfulness and the view of Fraser’s body as he moved.  Fraser repeated the whole fluid motion again to dispense with his boxers, then sat up to remove his shirt. 

“Do you want me back on the floor, Ray?” he asked, resting his hands on his bent knees so that his fingers brushed the insides of Ray’s knees.

Ray leaned in, took Fraser’s head in both his hands and kissed him hard.

“No,” he said, a little breathlessly.  “I want my clothes gone too.”

Fraser licked his lips as he eyed the buttons on Ray’s emergency back-up shirt.

“May I use my hands, Ray?” he asked.  Ray’s heart sped up a bit.

“I don’t think you need to do that,” he said, hoping he was reading the cue right.  “In fact, you’d better put ’em behind your back until I tell you different.”

“Of course, Ray,” Fraser said agreeably. He put his hands behind his back and folded his legs to kneel in front of Ray.  He bent forward, carefully pulled Ray’s shirttails from his waistband with his teeth, then moved up until his mouth was nearly level with Ray’s collarbone.  He leaned to one side, sniffing at Ray’s shoulder.

“What? Am I still dirty?” Ray asked.

“You smell delightful, Ray.  I can also smell the leather from your holster.  It’s. . .”  Fraser took a deep breath.  “. . .Intoxicating.”

Ray rolled his eyes.

“Quit stalling,” he told Fraser.

“Of course, Ray. Sorry, Ray,” Fraser said.  His mouth skated over to Ray’s top button.  Fraser took a deep breath and unbuttoned Ray’s shirt with his mouth, pausing to breathe only when he was nearly at Ray’s navel, then continuing until the shirt was hanging loose.  Then he uncurled his spine so he could use his teeth to carefully pull the shirt back, exposing Ray’s shoulders.

Breathing quick now, Ray wrapped one arm around Fraser’s bare waist and held up his other wrist to offer the cuff-button to Fraser’s mouth.  Fraser nuzzled at it briefly, then deftly unbuttoned it, letting his tongue lick at Ray’s wrist, peering up at him as if asking for permission.  Ray sighed happily and bent his wrist back further so the sensitive skin brushed against Fraser’s mouth.  Fraser’s tongue fluttered against Ray’s skin, keeping time, practically dancing with his pulse.

“Mm. . .yeah, that’s good. . .”  Ray glanced at Fraser’s face, realizing that he’d forgotten to ask what Fraser had meant earlier by that stuff about rewards and consequences.  It was probably okay to just say when something felt good, though, wasn’t it?  He’d certainly been doing that a whole lot up until today and Fraser always seemed to take it like Ray meant it. 

He could feel Fraser smile against his wrist before he. . .kept licking at Ray’s pulse.  It was getting a little weird—almost like an itch, but at the same time harder to feel Fraser’s touch.  Ray wondered if Fraser had gotten stuck there or something.  Or maybe he was waiting for instructions?  Not that he’d needed to be told to _start_ doing it, not really.

“Hey, Ben, wake up.”  Ray swatted Fraser lightly on the ass with his other hand. “You’re not done yet.”

Fraser looked up at Ray.

“Of course not, Ray,” he agreed, and switched to Ray’s other wrist, giving it the same loving treatment.  Ray shook the sleeve off his freed hand, letting the shirt dangle off his other arm.  He laced his fingers into Fraser’s hair.

“Get it off,” he murmured, jiggling his hand a little in front of Fraser’s face, mostly just to see what Fraser would do.  What he did first was lick Ray’s palm.

“As you wish,” he said softly, gently nuzzling Ray’s hand aside so he could reach the rest of the shirt.  He carefully gripped the collar in his teeth, then bent forward, with deliberate grace, slowly tugging the sleeve free of Ray’s arm.  As Fraser bent over double, Ray gazed down at his bare back and the hands he was still holding down at the small of his back.  His face was almost in Ray’s lap, with Ray’s hand half-hidden in his dark hair.  Not sure what else to do, Ray gave Fraser’s head a little tug, pulling him closer before letting go.

“Go on,” Ray said. “Keep going. I’m still dressed.”  Not that he had any idea how Fraser was going to get him out of his pants while he was kneeling, especially without using his hands, but hey, it’d be interesting to see him try, at least.

Fraser slid back a little before bending back down to bring his mouth to the button on Ray’s jeans. He gently worried at it with his teeth until it popped free, then quickly grasped the zipper’s tab with his sharp canine.  He worked the zipper down smoothly and slowly, his face brushing against Ray.  Even through the cotton of his shorts, Ray could feel a warm puff of breath on his cock.  He gasped and his cock twitched in reaction, but Fraser was not distracted from his mission as he gently finished lowering the zipper.  He raised his face a few inches to tug down the left side of Ray’s jeans, then mirrored his actions on the right, alternating sides until Ray’s jeans were loosened enough to puddle at his knees.

Ray rose to his feet and stepped out of his pants.  He looked down at Fraser, still kneeling there on the floor, perfectly positioned to do the obvious.  Staring intently at Ray’s growing hard-on, in fact, although maybe he was just running dozens of scenarios through in his mind to figure out the best way to get Ray’s underpants off.

“Look at me,” said Ray without really deciding to. 

Fraser looked up at him, his face flushed, his breath coming in soft, short bursts.  Ray’s breath caught.  Okay, this was still. . .working.

He made his voice sharper, colder: “Finish what you started. Then you’re going to suck me.”

“Yes, Ray,” Fraser said, bending to his task again.  Once he had Ray’s shorts on the floor, he looked back up. “Is this sufficient, Ray?” he asked meekly.

“Stop fucking talking so much,” Ray snapped as he kicked the shorts away.  The harsh words coming out of his own mouth pulled him up short like a slap in the face—he opened his mouth again, to apologize—but Fraser’s entire body shuddered, and his dick jerked, almost brushing his belly, even fuller than it had been during that whole dirty-yoga striptease.  Ray sucked in a breath, shut his mouth, and stared down at Fraser, trying to look stern and intimidating.  Trying to _loom_.

Fraser’s shoulders slumped, but Ray was pretty sure it was. . .what would Fraser call it if they were watching a nature program?  Or Dief with the ladies?  A _signaling_ gesture.  And if that wood Fraser was sporting was anything to go on, the signal was much more ‘Please, may I have some more?’ than ‘This day just keeps getting worse and worse.’

Then Fraser erased any doubt Ray might have had about it by leaning forward and practically _inhaling_ Ray’s cock, going halfway down the shaft before a brief pause.

“Jesus fuck,” Ray whispered as Fraser started sucking him.  He felt weird and exposed standing like this, with Fraser on his knees down there.  Okay, this was supposed to be every guy’s fantasy, half the porn in the world was exactly this, but Ray’s fantasies were honestly more like— _oh God_ , that felt good, though—more like R-rated soft-focus Hollywood. . . He groaned softly, biting his lip and letting his eyes fall shut.  That was better, if he didn’t have to look—but, no that was worse, if he couldn’t see, he couldn’t tell if Fraser was okay. . .

He looked down again.  Fraser’s eyes were closed as he went down, fast and deep. The muscles of his throat convulsed—Ray felt the movement as a jolt of pleasure—and shit, there were tears leaking out the corners of Fraser’s eyes.

Ray’s heart slammed into his throat.  _Fuck_ — _no, wait_ —Fraser had said, he’d _said_ , but. . . Forcing the panic down, Ray reached down with one hand to cradle the back of Fraser’s head.

“Ben,” he said, soft and more or less steady.  “Look at me.”

Fraser pulled back slightly without taking his mouth off Ray, opening his eyes to look up into Ray’s.

Ray looked into Fraser’s face, trying to get a read on him.  He didn’t see anything that looked like pain or fear; Fraser was totally still, simply holding Ray in his mouth as he diligently met Ray’s gaze.  He didn’t even look like he was crying for real; more like his eyes were just watering.  Satisfied, Ray gave him a sharp little nod and a pat on the side of the face.

“Okay,” he muttered under his breath, more to himself than to Fraser.

Fraser seemed to take it as encouragement and enthusiastically went down again, his mouth and throat working around Ray’s dick, sending waves of pleasure through his body that made it hard for him to keep his eyes focused on Fraser’s head, to think straight, to stay on his fucking feet. . . He grabbed at Fraser’s shoulder for balance.

Fraser pulled off him abruptly, looking up at Ray with concern.

“What—wait—what—?” Ray stuttered in confusion.

“Was that a signal?” Fraser asked hoarsely.  “Do you need me to do something else?”

Ray blinked, trying to make sense of the question, to put together some fucking words to answer it.

“What?  I—no, I was—no.”  He took a breath and said firmly,  “No, it’s fine, you’re good.”

Fraser’s head tilted back in a gesture even Ray could see was part submission and part relief and part. . .some kind of primal pleasure he’d never seen from Fraser before.  Ray was too far gone himself to try to analyze what was happening, except that apparently he’d done something just right, whatever the hell it was.

“Don’t fucking stop,” Ray told Fraser, hoping like hell his instincts weren’t screwing him over.

Fraser went down on him again, this time with deliberation and intent, swallowing around him with a recognizable rhythm instead of involuntary spasms.  Ray planted his feet more firmly, but his legs were starting to tremble.

“Going to—hold onto you,” he said, before laying his hand firmly back on Fraser’s shoulder.  After a second’s hesitation, he put the other into Fraser’s hair—that had been a good thing every other time he’d done it.  Fraser moaned around Ray’s cock.

Ray clutched at Fraser for support as the pleasure mounted, his fingers clenching in Fraser’s hair and his hips thrusting forward involuntarily.  Fraser shifted, just a little, and took Ray deeper than he ever had before.

Ray felt the edge rushing up on him, he was about to go over, and normally he’d give Fraser some kind of warning, although Fraser’d never pulled off yet when he did, but still, old habit and it only takes an extra second and all that—but the rules were different now and he wasn’t sure which ones he was supposed to be playing by— _know what to expect_ or _not mine to know_ —but _shit_ it was too late now, the best he could manage was a tug on Fraser’s hair the second before his back arched and his knees locked and he was coming down Fraser’s throat.

Fraser swallowed like usual, and as Ray swayed on his feet, he felt Fraser’s hands on his back, steadying him and keeping him from actually falling over.  Panting, Ray eased down to his knees.  He laid his head on Fraser’s shoulder for a couple of seconds, resting there while his heart slowed down and the buzz died down.  Fraser stroked Ray’s stomach slowly, not saying anything.  Ray sighed and nuzzled Fraser’s neck.

After a little while, though, his brain started working again, enough to worry about how Fraser was doing and what Ray was supposed to do next and hell, how he was going to take care of Fraser now that he’d lost the momentum. . .He lifted his head and looked at Fraser, who smiled back at him.

“I decided that preventing you from an unexpected fall was probably more desirable than adhering to your earlier order for me to keep my hands behind my back,” Fraser said apologetically.

Ray blinked at him in confusion for a moment.  Oh, fuck, he’d taken his eye off the ball, dumb, dumb, dumb. . .But it was good to know that Fraser wasn’t going to be pigheadedly literal about Ray’s orders.  It was a relief to know he _could_ take it casually, which Ray realized he hadn’t been sure about.  Although come to that, he still wasn’t at all sure what was going on in Fraser’s head, here.

He cupped Fraser’s cheek in his hand.

“It’s okay,” he said. “You did good.”  It sounded weird—patronizing—saying that when Fraser was suddenly talking like his normal self.  But Fraser shivered against him.

“I’m glad,” he said in a whisper, almost like in a confessional.  “Was it. . .did you like it?”

Ray wasn’t totally sure what the answer to that was, but there was another thing he wasn’t sure about, either.  He put an arm around Fraser’s shoulders, pulled him close and held him for a second.  Then he took Fraser’s chin lightly in his other hand.

“We’re not done,” he said, but he _wasn’t_ sure, so he added, “Are we?”

Fraser met Ray’s gaze steadily.

“Your pleasure _is_ my pleasure, Ray.”  The subservience was back in his voice—not really what Ray wanted to hear, but at least it meant he’d guessed right.  “We’re done when you say we’re done, Ray.”

“That’s right,” said Ray, making both his voice and his grip on Fraser’s chin harder.  “And I say this ain’t over.  You understand?”

Fraser nodded and lowered his eyes.

“Yes, Ray.”

“You going to be good for me?” Ray asked, forcing Fraser to look at him like he was trying to make a point to Dief.

“So good,” Fraser moaned, and oh yeah, that was a sweet sound.  “I want to be so good for you, Ray.”

“That’s good,” said Ray.  “I’m glad we’re on the same page, here.  You be good, and everybody gets what they want.  It’s like a win-win situation.”  Jesus, he was starting to sound like a cheap movie mobster.  He wasn’t sure if that was better or worse than sounding too. . .real.

“I want to be good,” Fraser said.  His voice was dreamy-drunk.  “Want to be so good for you.”

Ray hesitated, trying to figure out how to go about this, trying not to be too creeped out by the weird state Fraser had fallen back into.  It was a good sign, he could tell, he just kind of wished there was a way to drive Fraser crazy without. . .turning him into someone else.  He pushed that thought away, trying to focus on what the hell he was doing.

“Scoot up against the couch,” he told Fraser.  He was going to need some back support for this.  “Ass on the floor, back against the couch.  Now.”  

Fraser obeyed with speed and grace.  Of course.  Ray straddled Fraser’s legs, pushing his shoulder against the couch with one hand, caressing his cheek with the other before letting it drift down to Fraser’s chest.

“You’re going to give me what I want, now.  I know you’ve got it.  I know you want to give it to me.”

“I do,” Fraser said. “I want to give you _everything_.”

Ray dropped his hand to Fraser’s erection.

“Really?  ’Cause I ain’t seen any evidence yet.  I don’t see you trying _at all_.”  He squeezed Fraser’s cock and started stroking, slow but firm, gripping tighter than he really wanted to.

“I. . .I. . .” Fraser stuttered.  “How. . .how have I failed you, Ray?” he gasped, sounding both turned on and worried.

“You’re holding out on me,” said Ray, not letting his nervousness leak into his voice.  “I ain’t seen what you look like when you go wild.  But that’s okay.”  He gave Fraser a smile with a little menace in it, speeding up his hand a little as he did so.  “Because, buddy, I know you’ve got it in you, and I am going to fucking _take it from you_.”

“Yes,” Fraser gasped.  “Make me, oh, God, please, _make_ me.”

Ray kissed Fraser hard, pressing him back against the couch, forcing his tongue into Fraser’s mouth as he jerked him harder.

“C’mon,” he gasped, coming up for air.  “C’mon, show me, show me, give it to me.”

Not giving Fraser a chance to speak, he crushed their mouths together again.  Fraser made a muffled sound against Ray’s mouth as he came in Ray’s hand.

Breathing hard, Ray pushed himself back far enough to get a look at Fraser’s face.  Fraser looked absolutely _wrecked_ ; Ray had never seen him like that before.  Biting his lips, Ray touched Fraser’s cheek with his clean hand.     

“So good,” Fraser said brokenly.  “So good,” he repeated.  “Oh, God, thank you, thank you, thank you _so much_ , Ray.”

There was a knot in Ray’s chest and for a second he thought he might cry.  That was the look he’d wanted to see on Fraser’s face, all right, the thing he’d been missing, but there was something scary about seeing Fraser that vulnerable.  And then, the way he’d said Ray’s name, that last time, way too close to the way he’d said _God_. . .

“Shh, shh. . .”  Ray gathered Fraser into his arms.  “That was good, yeah, you did a good job.”  Remembering Fraser’s words from before, not sure how important it was to close things up in some kind of ritual way, but feeling like the words were important, he murmured, “You were good.  You are good.”

“Thank you, Ray,” Fraser repeated.  He sounded a little less frantic, a little more aware.

Ray stroked Fraser’s hair, holding him close.

“Okay,” he said quietly, “ _Now_ we’re done.  This is me telling you so.  You don’t got to do anything, you don’t got to move or anything if you don’t want to, but. . .you do what you want.  All right?”

“Okay,” Fraser said dreamily and stayed exactly where he was.

Ray stayed put, too, resting his cheek against Fraser’s and listening to him breathe as Ray held him.  Then Fraser moved, just a little, sitting up a little straighter, smoothing his hair, and somehow looking like his normal, sober self again.

“Was that. . .I know you said it was good, Ray, and thank you for that, but. . .well, are _you_ all right?”

Ray shifted to sit beside Fraser instead of straddling his lap like he’d been doing, but he kept his arms around him.  Ray’s right hand was still a mess, but this was really not the time to go looking for Kleenex, so he just kept it folded up and tried not to get Fraser too much stickier than he already was.  He leaned his head on Fraser’s shoulder, mostly because he felt like cuddling, but it meant Fraser couldn’t look right at his face, either.

“I. . .I think so, yeah,” he said slowly, trying to pull some coherent thoughts out of the big mess of stuff swirling around in his head.  “I. . .did it. . .it seemed like it. . .went okay?”

“For me it did,” Fraser agreed.  “Here, let me. . .”  Fraser reached over to pull Ray’s old afghan around them.  “A sort of distancing mechanism,” he explained.  “From the. . .scene,” he hastily added.  “Not from each other.”  He shifted so they were both cuddled under the blanket, like he was trying to prove his point.

“I don’t see what the blanket has to do with it,” said Ray, frowning.

“It’s. . .more domestic, I suppose,” Fraser said.  “And it’s a way to literally cover up after being so vulnerable in so many ways.”  He paused.  “And I thought you might be chilly.”

Ray snorted softly.

“Yeah, kind of.  Hey, as long as we’re getting all comfortable, I’ve got this perfectly good couch here.” 

He didn’t really feel like letting go of Fraser right that second, but he clambered up onto the couch, trailing the afghan with him.  He wiped his hand on the corner of the blanket—kind of gross, but it was what was there and he could always throw it in the washer later—tucked that corner out of the way, and adjusted the rest of the blanket around himself, then held out his hand for Fraser to join him.  Fraser took his hand, although he didn’t actually need it, and pulled himself up alongside Ray.

“Do you want to talk about it?” he asked hesitantly.

Ray wasn’t sure he did want to, but he was pretty sure _not_ talking about it was a bad idea.

“Probably should, huh?  I mean, I don’t mind, I just. . .I don’t know what to say.”

“We don’t have to,” Fraser said, sounding almost wistful.  “We can shelve it.  Some people prefer not to engage in analytical behavior immediately afterward.  Others find it helpful, especially if someone has just engaged in a new activity.”

“Nah, it’s okay, we can eat our spinach.”  Ray found a smile to flash Fraser, maybe not his biggest one ever, but hopefully enough to reassure him.  “Just, you might have to start.”

Fraser looked at his hands.

“It was. . .very good for me, Ray.  You said I did well.  You did, too, you know.”

“Yeah?”  Ray flicked a glance at Fraser’s face, then looked down at his own hands as they fiddled with the holes in the afghan.  “I thought. . .it seemed like it. . .worked out okay.  I mean. . .”  He could feel his face getting hot.  “I was never sure if I was doing the right thing, but. . .”  He made himself look at Fraser again.  “You seemed like you were having a good time.”

“I was, Ray,” Fraser said.  “It went. . .very well for a first time, I thought.  Or for any time, really,” he added quickly.

Ray’s mouth twitched with a sudden urge to laugh.  It wasn’t really funny, Fraser practically tripping over himself trying to reassure him, but it kind of was.  And even if Fraser was probably exaggerating that last part, it _did_ make Ray feel better.   

“Thanks,” he said softly, then added after a moment, “Scootch over.”  He tugged at Fraser’s knee until he got him turned sideways so Ray could lie back against him.  He tugged the afghan back around them both, cuddling up against Fraser’s warm, slightly sticky skin.

He tried to think of what to say.  It seemed like it was his turn, after what Fraser had said, and probably what Fraser really wanted was for Ray to say _It was good for me, too,_ but it just seemed so much more complicated than that, he didn’t even really know how he felt about it.  _Good_ wasn’t really the word (and remembering the way Fraser had kept saying _good_ made Ray’s stomach squirm in a way that was maybe not bad but definitely not _good_ ). . . He shook his head a little, trying to focus.

“I wasn’t lying,” he blurted out, and this wasn’t the thing he wanted to say, maybe, and probably not what Fraser wanted to hear, but it was true and Fraser had already put himself on the line a whole hell of a lot, so Ray owed it to him to do the same.  “I did get something I wanted.”

“I’m glad, Ray,” Fraser said.  He sounded. . .well, he did sound glad, but also kind of neutral almost.  Like Ray was a scared witness Fraser was trying not to spook, leaving it up to him to say more, or not.

“I still don’t. . .really get it, but. . .I want. . .I do want to see you really getting into it and—not just _see_ , that’s not what I mean—I want to. . .take you there.”

“You did,” Fraser said, planting an awkward kiss on the part of Ray’s chest he could easily reach.  “Admirably so.”

“And I still want to,” Ray pressed on.  “It was. . .hard, and kind of weird, but I. . .I can do it.  I’m game to try, anyway.  Because I really do want to make that happen again.”

“I’m glad you’re willing to do it again, Ray,” Fraser said softly.  “And we can talk about it, about what you found hard and weird.  And how we can make it less so in the future.”

Ray sighed.

“I don’t know if I _can_ right now,” he admitted.  “I can try, but it’s like I got all these thoughts bouncing around but all the words have flown south.”

Fraser soothingly stroked Ray’s thigh.

“There’s no rule stating that we have to talk about it _tonight_.”  Fraser laughed a little.  “There’s not even a general _guideline_ that a thorough discussion has to be immediate.”

“Well, good, ’cause you know how I hate to break rules,” muttered Ray.  Fraser smiled at the sarcasm. 

“But I don’t want—are you going to be okay if we leave it ‘till later?” Ray pressed.

“Actually, while I would’ve been perfectly happy to do so if you’d wanted to discuss this now, my own preference would be for later as well.”

Ray frowned.  Fraser seemed less twitchy than before, so maybe he really meant it.  If Fraser wanted to let him off the hook. . .Ray just didn’t have the energy to fight him about it.  Still. . .

“Really?”

“Really,” Fraser said.  “In fact, what I think I’d like most is to go to bed and fall asleep in your arms.”

“I can get behind that plan,” said Ray, because really, that sounded fantastic.

And it was, it was just what he needed, to lie there in the dark, no need to move or talk or think or do anything but just soak in Fraser’s warmth and feel his breathing get all slow and easy and his body just kind of melt as he slipped into sleep in Ray’s embrace.  But even though Ray felt exhausted and his brain was in no shape to form any kind of coherent thought, he lay there for a long time before he finally shut down.


	3. Chapter 3

Ray woke up feeling a little off-kilter, like he’d woken up out of the middle of a dream or gone to bed after a fight or something.  As he came all the way awake, he remembered the night before, the sex and. . .everything.

He rolled over and came nose-to-shoulder with Fraser, who was not only still in the bed but actually asleep.  That never happened—Fraser was totally a morning person and Ray was totally not; he’d never woken up before Fraser before.  He got up on one elbow to peer at Fraser.  He was asleep all right, looking relaxed and boyish with his hair messed up.  Ray felt such a strong surge of tenderness that he just had to lean down and kiss him, first on his bare shoulder, then on the corner of his mouth.

Fraser hummed happily as his eyes flew open, briefly darting around until they met Ray’s.

“Good morning, Ray,” he said cheerfully.  “Did you sleep well?  I know I certainly did.”

“Mph, I don’t remember.  Slept hard, I think,” said Ray, a little disoriented.  Fraser being cheerful in the morning was pretty standard, but Ray couldn’t help remembering how he’d been last night and somehow that made Fraser’s normal seem a little weird.  Or maybe it was just that Ray was feeling weird.  He ran his hand over Fraser’s chest; the feel of his warm skin under Ray’s palm was comfortingly familiar.

Fraser reached up to stroke Ray’s hair gently.

“Your hair certainly looks like it got a workout,” he said fondly.  “I don’t think you’ll have a choice between flat or tall when you style it this morning.”

“You dig the dragged-through-a-hedge-backwards look, that what you’re saying?”  Ray rolled his eyes.

“There’s little I don’t ‘dig’ about you, Ray,” Fraser said, then suddenly leaned in to give the tip of Ray’s nose a quick kiss.

Startled, Ray grinned.

“Boy, if this is how you get after you been laid. . .”

“It’s not the first time you’ve seen me chipper after a night of passion,” Fraser pointed out.

“Well, no, sure,” Ray agreed.  It was true; Fraser did usually seem extra-perky in the morning when they’d had sex the night before (not that Ray had woken up with Fraser all that often when they _hadn’t_ ).  “You’ve got a merit badge in chipper. It’s just funny when you get all _cute_.”  

He ruffled up Fraser’s hair, giving him a teasing smile.   _Funny_ wasn’t quite what he meant, but he didn’t quite dare to call Fraser _cute_ without making a joke of it; he wasn’t sure if Fraser would get offended.

Fraser ran his hand smoothly down Ray’s side toward his groin.

“Just how ‘cute’ would you like me to be, Ray?” he asked.  His face was a picture of boyish innocence, but his voice was downright _dirty_.

Ray twitched; Fraser’s low sexy-voice was a turn-on but the image that flashed through Ray’s mind—Fraser on his knees, looking up at him with a child’s innocent face—was just the opposite.

“Uh. . .over the age of consent?” he choked out.

Fraser pulled back abruptly, his face shutting down.  Not completely, but the blinds were definitely tilted.

“Oh, good Lord, of course, Ray,” he said quickly.

“Jeez, no, sorry, I didn’t mean. . .”  Ray reached for Fraser’s hand.  “Sorry, you just surprised me, I don’t even know why I. . .took it that way.”

Fraser smiled, although not as brightly as before.

“I’ll take it as a compliment to my youthful good looks and boyish charm?”

“You sure have all that.”  Ray kissed Fraser’s fingertips, then lay down, still holding Fraser’s hand in both of his.  “Look, can we. . .maybe we should talk about it?  Before it gets to be this thing that’s too weird to talk about?  Fuck, I mean—you’re thinking I’m thinking something weird and I don’t know what the heck you’re thinking and. . .”  He trailed off in frustration at his stupid inability to string together a sentence and looked at Fraser, trying to will him to give Ray a hand, here.

“Of course, Ray,” Fraser said, with that serious-but-reassuring look he gave little old ladies in distress.  “Do you have a specific question you’d like to ask?”

“What are you worried about?” Ray blurted out, not giving himself time to think it over.  “I mean, right now.”

“That you’ll find, or have already found, that some of my desires are abhorrent to you,” Fraser replied almost immediately.

Ray nodded slowly, rubbing Fraser’s hand.  He knew how that felt, all right, and nothing _he’d_ ever wanted from anyone had been. . . _unacceptable to the majority_ or whatever it was Fraser had called it last night.

“I get that,” he said quietly.  “And I’m sorry that. . .I don’t want to make you feel that way.  I guess. . .”  He thought about it.  “I guess maybe I’m worried about that, too.  But. . .you’re not going to scare me off, you know?  I mean, I love you.  You know that, right?”

“And I you,” Fraser said.  He took a moment, looking like he was thinking things through, too.  “I don’t think you said or did anything specific that made me think that,” he said.  “That my. . .responses last night were wrong or unacceptable.  I think this is more about my own fears than about anything you’ve done to make them worse.”

Ray laid one hand on Fraser’s chest, keeping Fraser’s hand clasped in his other.

“I loved you last night, too.”  Which was true.  The whole thing was a jumble of confused, conflicting feelings, but he knew exactly what that ache in his chest meant.  That, he was clear on.

Fraser drew their joined hands together to kiss Ray’s fingers.

“Not everyone would see what we did last night as a loving act. I’m glad you do,” he said quietly.

Ray stroked Fraser’s chest, hesitating, then asked, “Can I ask you something?”

“Of course,” Fraser said.

“I didn’t feel like. . .”  Ray struggled for the right words.  “The way I was treating you—how come that feels like love to you?”

“Because you were giving me something I wanted.”  Fraser hesitated.  “In a strange way, precisely _because_ you were giving me what I wanted even though _you_ didn’t want it, and perhaps didn’t even understand it, but gave it to me anyway. . .what could be more loving than that?”

Ray nodded vigorously.  That wasn’t quite what he’d been trying to ask, but Fraser had put Ray’s own feelings into words better than he could.  And maybe it didn’t matter exactly why Fraser wanted to be treated bad.  The important thing was he trusted Ray to do it without meaning it for real, and that was love, too.  Except what about those ‘friends’ he’d done this stuff with before?  They couldn’t have loved or known Fraser like Ray did, could they?  But apparently he’d trusted _them_ , too.  This was so not the time to interrogate Fraser about his exes, or whatever they were, though, so Ray tried to push that thought out of his head.  Instead he leaned over to give Fraser a kiss.

“You’re right,” he said.  “I don’t really get it, but I meant what I said last night.  If that’s what you want, then I want to. . .be the one to give it to you.”

“I wouldn’t go elsewhere for it, Ray,” Fraser said seriously.  “I don’t want it more than I need you.  I would rather never have it again than try to pursue it with someone else.”

That hit Ray like a sucker-punch, a shock of feeling so strong he couldn’t tell if it was joy or pain.  He had to shut his eyes for a second to absorb it.

“You don’t got to,” he said, when he got his voice working again.  “All you got to do is help me figure out what the hell I’m doing.”

“I mean it, Ray,” Fraser said.  “Not just that I wouldn’t go elsewhere, but that if you can’t give this to me, I don’t want you to. . .force yourself to do things you find uncomfortable or. . .unpleasant.  Or,” Fraser tilted his head to the side.  “I believe the phrase was ‘hard and kind of weird’?”

“Yeah. . .”  Ray lay back down with his head on Fraser’s chest.  With Fraser’s heartbeat soothing in his ear, not having to look him right in the face, it was easier to think about the details of the night before.  “I kind of jumped in without really knowing what I was doing—obviously—so then I had to fly by the seat of my pants and that was. . .hard, yeah.”

“You did admirably well,” Fraser said.  “But I can understand how it must have been hard to improvise something that alien to your nature.”

Ray wondered a little about that.  It was nice to know Fraser didn’t think Ray was really that kind of asshole (not that he’d thought Fraser did, not _really_ ).  But if Fraser liked Ray for not being an asshole, why did he want to sleep with even a pretend-asshole?

“Well, it’s not like making shit up as I go along isn’t basically what I do all the time,” he said.  “I just. . .wasn’t sure what would happen if I fucked up.  Didn’t want to fuck you up.”

“Hmm,” Fraser said and was silent for a few moments.  “As I believe I said, there are steps we can take to avoid some of those pitfalls.  Assuming you still want to do this.”  
  
Ray nodded and gave Fraser a gentle poke in the bellybutton.

“Said I did. Stop worrying about it.”

He did get that Fraser had plenty of reason to be worried, but he wished that for once Fraser would actually take him at his word.  That wasn’t really how Fraser worked, though.  It wasn’t enough for Ray to _tell_ him something, Fraser had to see it to really believe it.  Which, for something like this, fair enough, Ray figured.  Maybe if he went ahead and asked some questions about the whole thing—some nice, safe logistical questions—Fraser would get the message that Ray was serious about going through with this.

“So, anyway, like I was saying,” he said, not giving Fraser a chance to argue with him.  “There’s some stuff I should ask you about, so I’ll know, for next time.”

“Of course, Ray,” Fraser said.  He propped himself up on one elbow, wearing his paying-careful-attention face.  “Anything you need to know, anywhere you want to start.”

“Well, so. . .”  Ray rolled over on his side, facing Fraser.  “At the end, there.  I didn’t know how you’d know to. . .to stop.  Doing what I said.  The only thing I could think of was to _tell_ you to stop. So that’s what I did, but. . .”  He shrugged.  “Is that how it’s supposed to work?”

“It’s one way to do it,” Fraser said.  “And certainly fairly common.  Usually people have a phrase or a word or even a gesture to indicate that a scene has started, and something corresponding to show it’s over.  It could even be an article of clothing or a piece of jewelry they put on at the start of a scene and remove at the end.”

Ray scratched his jaw, frowning.

“You used that word before.  Scene.  But I thought that was for, like, you know, the doctor roleplaying thing you were talking about before.”

“That’s frequently what it means,” Fraser agreed.  “But for us, people in our situation, in an ongoing relationship, it’s also useful terminology to distinguish between what we do here,” Fraser waved his arm vaguely toward the room.  “And out there.”  He made a broader gesture toward the window.  “It’s probably especially helpful for us since we also work together as often as not.”

“Huh.  Yeah, I can see where that would be useful.  I mean, we do that anyway, kind of—talk to each other differently in bed than on the job or whatever.  But this is….we would be—we were—even more different.  Than we normally are.”   Ray shut his mouth before he could make even more of a mess of what he was trying to say.  He rubbed one of his feet against one of Fraser’s as he tried to get back to the original point.  “So, um, you were saying there are different kinds of signals we could have to say that the scene is on or off.”

“Signals, yes,” said Fraser, pressing Ray’s foot between both of his.  “It would probably be least confusing if we pick something simple and specific, at least for now.”

“Okay. . .”  Ray normally relied on body English and finesse to start things up, but this was a little different from regular old sex, and he didn’t see how else it could work, really.  It wasn’t like letting making out gradually lead to more serious stuff.  Either you were playing by this weird other set of rules or you weren’t; you couldn’t be halfway in-between.  “Did you have something in mind?”

“Oh.”  Fraser looked surprised.  “You want me to choose?”

“Not particularly.  I just haven’t thought about it before; thought maybe you had.”

“Well,”  Fraser looked away, his skin flushed.  “If you. . .were in the mood. . .and wanted to. . .maybe. . .”  He trailed off.

Ray smiled at Fraser’s sudden shyness.  Never mind the weird joking earlier, when Fraser got like this, it was adorable _and_ hot at the same time.  He slid his hand up Fraser’s shoulder.

“Maybe I could. . .?”

“Ask me if I want to be good for you,” Fraser muttered.

“Oh,” Ray breathed, because yeah, those were the magic words, that had been obvious last night.  “Yeah, all right.”  He kissed Fraser’s shoulder and Fraser gave him an appreciative hum.

“Just. . .don’t do it. . .casually, please,” Fraser said.

“Jesus, no.”  That was a stomach-turning thought: Fraser turning to him in the middle of the station house or somewhere, with that dreamy look like he was hypnotized, and. . . “No.  That would very much not be buddies.”  He squeezed Fraser’s shoulder.  “But _that’s_ not something I’m going to just say by mistake.”

Fraser shook himself slightly.

“No, you wouldn’t,” he agreed.  “That’s what makes it a good signal.”

“Yeah.  So, then, what should I do to get us out again?”  Ray asked.  “Does it work if I just say we’re done, like I did last night?  Do you want something else?”

“No, that worked fine.”  Fraser thought for a moment.  “At least in context, since I think I was coming back up anyway.”

“Where. . .?”  Ray started, then hesitated.

“Yes?”

“Where did you. . .do you. . .go?”  Ray asked.  “When you’re doing that.”

“It’s usually called ‘subspace,’ but it’s. . .I’m not sure what to compare it to.  It’s. . .when I’m there, I’m not completely outside myself.  I don’t lose _all_ awareness of. . .who I am.” Fraser frowned.  “It’s an altered state, certainly, perhaps akin to some meditative states.  When I’m ‘under’ as the usual term has it, I find I’m better able to concentrate on what I’m feeling rather than what I’m thinking.  To give an example you might be more familiar with, it’s not unlike the feeling associated with intense exercise.  I think the phrase is ‘runner’s high.’  Or maybe you’ve experienced something similar in the ring or while dancing.”

Ray nodded slowly.  Sex was like fighting that way sometimes, yeah: when the words fell away and he wasn’t thinking or calculating, just acting and reacting, his body running the show.  When he felt hyper-alive, in tune with the world, but the world was shrunk down so small, just a little bubble around him and one moment at a time.  For Ray, though, it was easy to fall out of thinking into feeling; sometimes he felt like he spent half his life fighting _not_ to.  _Stay in control.  Keep track of what you’re doing.  For God’s sake, Ray, don’t you ever think about consequences?_   Fraser, though. . .Fraser thought things through, thought them to death sometimes.  Maybe. . .maybe he didn’t know how to shut that part of his brain off and just feel what he was feeling.  Maybe this was what it took.

“And that’s. . .”  He almost said _good_ , but maybe that word had a special meaning now.  “You like that?”

“Very much so.”

“Is it. . .”  Ray wasn’t sure how to articulate what he wanted to ask.  “Is it something you can get out of, by yourself?”

“If I have to,” Fraser said.  “And if someone does something I find. . .unpleasant. . .Well, that brings me completely back to the real world very quickly indeed.”

“Oh.”  That was actually a relief to hear.  “Like you were saying before, no means no—you can say no in that kind of a situation?  Even if you’re, uh, under?”

“I’ve never been so far under that I allowed a limit to be crossed,” Fraser said.  “I suppose it’s possible, but it’s never come up.”

“Good.  I mean, I’m glad to know that.”  Ray stroked up and down Fraser’s arm.  “So. . .you want to tell me about some of your limits?  ’Cause I really don’t want to be guessing about that.”

“I think. . .well, if you were to punish me in here for a true fault, or for something I did or said out there that you didn’t like. . .”  Fraser’s voice trailed off.  “Not that I think you would,” he said hastily.  “But. . .I think that might break me, Ray,” he said, very softly.

Ray’s chest clenched so tight he could barely breathe.  He rolled away from Fraser.  He knew Fraser would probably take it the wrong way, but he just couldn’t look at him right then.  He wrapped his arms around his pillow, struggling to get a normal breath.

“Ray?” Fraser asked quietly, his voice sounding far away.  Suddenly, there was a hand resting lightly on Ray’s shoulder.

“I. . .”  Ray shook his head, his eyes closed.  “I’m not. . .”  He managed a shaky breath and mumbled, “I don’t know why you’re trusting me with this.”

“There’s very little I wouldn’t trust you with, Ray,” Fraser said.  He paused.  “That’s why I’m not sure what to tell you about my limits.  What I said last night, about limits being a moving target?”

Ray nodded a little.

“That you might find that you want to do more than you originally thought you did,” Fraser reminded him.  “With you, Ray, I think I might find that I want to do things I never really thought about before, or wanted.”

That hit Ray almost as hard as the first thing had.  Fraser trusting him with this was big, earth-shattering, but the thought that Fraser wanted to push it further, shred his safety net and throw himself into free-fall with only Ray to keep him safe. . .Ray wondered if this was what junkies felt like, longing and terror knotted together so tight he couldn’t tell one from the other.

“No, but. . .”  Ray shook his head, hugging the pillow tight.  “I wouldn’t ever hurt you on purpose,” he whispered.  “But I’m a fuck-up.  You know that.  I get mad.  Break things.”

“Do you think that wouldn’t be a danger if we didn’t do this?” Fraser asked hesitantly.

Ray made a choked noise. “Can I fuck up in other ways?  Sure, I’m multitalented.”

“I think, if anything, I’m the one who’s more likely to fuck up in any one of a number of ways,” Fraser said.  He stroked Ray’s arm reassuringly.  “And. . .well, to draw on last night, when you told me to stop talking?  You made it a specific command about what you wanted me to do in that particular moment.  You didn’t say something like, ‘You always talk too much and now I get to shut you up.’  Your inherent understanding shone through.  I think that’s true in here _and_ out there.”

Ray’s grip on his pillow loosened a little.  Maybe Fraser wouldn’t say that if he knew exactly where that command had come from, that Ray had said it because Fraser’s groveling was freaking Ray out and he just needed to stop hearing those words come out of Fraser’s mouth.  But on the other hand, maybe it was okay, because Ray _had_ gotten that right: it hadn’t been about Fraser being a know-it-all in real life, that hadn’t even crossed Ray’s mind.  And he _did_ know better than to throw a real fight at Fraser when he was. . .down like that.  He didn’t even need Fraser to tell him that.  It was just, knowing was one thing.   Knowing was the easy part.

“It’s just. . .you’re handing me the keys to the car, here.”

“I know,” Fraser said.  “And there’s no one I’d rather give them to.”

Ray put his hand on Fraser’s where it rested on Ray’s shoulder.  He wanted to promise Fraser that he wouldn’t screw this one up—he wanted to promise Fraser everything, really.  But he’d made those kinds of promises before, and look where he’d ended up.  So he made the promise silently inside his head instead: _I’m not going to let you down. I’ll take care of you._

“Thanks,” he said softly, hoping that Fraser would understand some of what he wasn’t saying with words.  “I’m sorry I keep freaking out on you.”

Fraser turned his hand to intertwine his fingers with Ray’s.

“You have every reason,” he said quietly.  “I’m giving you a lot of unexpected things to think about.”

“Which pretty much makes it an average day around here.”  Ray tilted his head so Fraser could see he was teasing.  He pulled Fraser’s hand to his mouth to kiss each of his knuckles.  “I’ll catch up.”

“And I’ll try to make sure you’re the one setting the pace,” Fraser promised.

Ray nodded.  Fraser was good at that, when he wanted to be.  He mostly only did it with people he thought needed coddling or guidance, though.  With Ray, he usually charged ahead at his own pace and expected Ray to keep up.  And even though that sometimes made Ray want to smack him, he appreciated that Fraser thought he _could_ keep up.  But in this case, Fraser almost _had_ to let Ray set the pace.  Ray was the one calling the shots, after all: that was the whole point.

“Okay,” he said.  “I got some more questions, if you’re up for it.”

“Of course,” Fraser said.

Ray tugged Fraser down so he was spooned up behind Ray; Fraser rested his chin on Ray’s shoulder.  It was easier to ask the embarrassing stuff this way: close, but not staring each other in the face.

“So, you said part of what you wanted was, um, to get rewarded?  For being good?”  He gave Fraser’s knuckles another kiss.

“Yes, that’s very. . .motivating for me,” Fraser said.

“But you said your idea of rewards might be unusual?”

“Mm hm,” Fraser agreed.  “I _like_ being spanked.”

Ray chuckled at his emphatic tone.

“Yeah, I kind of got that idea. But, so, what counts as a reward in your book?”

“Your willingness to do this in the first place,” Fraser said.  “More specifically. . .Well, praise is always welcome.” 

Ray nodded and made an encouraging noise.  Fraser thought for a moment.

“It’s hard to quantify,” he said.  “Basically, it’s the time, attention and effort as well as specific physical sensations.”

“No, I don’t mean, what do you like,” said Ray.  “I mean, like, if I’m supposed to reward you when you do the right thing, what do I _do_?”

“Give me more,” Fraser said.  “I realize that’s terribly vague, but if you demand something of me and I do it well, then the most sincere proof of that is being asked to do it again, or to do more of it.”

“That sounds more like. . .how you operate out there,” said Ray.  “I thought you meant you wanted it different, in here.”

“In some ways it’s the same, in others it’s different,” Fraser said.  “I like being spanked.  If you hit me ten times, and you liked the way I took it so much that you hit me another ten times, then I’m being rewarded twice.”  Fraser shifted his hips back a little.  “Three times if you also tell me out loud.”

The picture that put into Ray’s mind was kind of embarrassing, but it turned him on a little, too.  Or maybe what was turning him on was the feeling that just talking about this was getting _Fraser_ hot under the collar he wasn’t wearing.

“Okay,” said Ray, thoughtfully, as he wriggled backwards to bring his ass back up against Fraser’s crotch.  Just to test his theory, and, okay, maybe tease Fraser a little.  Fraser shifted back a little more. 

Ray thought about pushing it, but he didn’t really want to start something before he’d finished asking about the stuff he’d tripped over _last_ time, so he stayed where he was.  He did give Fraser’s thumb a quick nibble, though, to let him know Ray wasn’t totally dimwitted.  He was rewarded with a puff of air against his neck as Fraser suddenly inhaled and then softly exhaled.  Ray grinned, but then his smile evaporated as he remembered what he’d wanted to ask next.

“Okay, I can work with that.  So, but then, you also said. . .”  This was harder to spit out. “You don’t want to be punished for something real, but you do want to be. . .punished?”

Fraser looked thoughtful.  “I never minded being punished before, but neither was it particularly compelling.  With you, for reasons I don’t fully understand, thinking about the possibility of disappointing you that severely is. . .somewhat distressing.”  Fraser paused.  “Which is not to say that I’ll die if you tell me I’m doing something other than to your satisfaction,” he added.

“All right,” said Ray, but he wondered about the alarm on Fraser’s face last night when he asked _How have I failed you?_ , and just how worried he’d actually been.

“So, here’s the other thing,” he said, and as he hesitated, because the next question was an even harder one, he felt Fraser relax against him.  Ray hadn’t realized he was tense.  Had he been expecting Ray to tell him he’d done it all wrong or something?

 _Yeah, maybe chalk one up in the “actually worried” column_ , Ray thought.  _Just keep walking careful, Kowalski._

Which didn’t make it any easier to ask, but he took a breath and got the words out in a rush: “You said you wanted me to hurt you.”

“I enjoy certain kinds of pain in a sexual context,” Fraser said carefully.

“You got to tell me what you mean by that,” Ray insisted.  “I need to know what you’re talking about, here.”  And just like that, Fraser’s tension was back.

“You could hit me,” Fraser said.  “Anywhere.”  He paused.  “Not with fists. I’m too conditioned to fight back against fists.”

“No.  I can’t do that.”  Ray’s own body had tensed up at Fraser’s words.  He fought down the vivid memory of his fist connecting with Fraser’s jaw on the lakeshore.

He felt Fraser shudder slightly.  Was he thinking of the same thing?  Before Ray could think if he even wanted to ask, Fraser continued.

“You could pinch me black and blue, though, and I would smile and ask for more.”

Ray tried to calm down enough to actually think about that.  It wasn’t like he hadn’t pinched Fraser already, here and there, when he was playing rough.  Not hard, though; not like Fraser had in mind.

“I. . .maybe.  That might be okay.  I don’t think I would mind. . .marking you.  If you were into it.  I just don’t want. . .”  His foot bounced against the mattress as he tried to think it through.

Fraser touched his foot gently against Ray’s.

“What?” he asked softly, encouragingly.  “You don’t mind pinching me enough to bruise, but. . .?”

“It’s. . .it ain’t. . .it ain’t about how _much_ it hurts,” Ray said.  “Well, it’s that, too, but. . . It’s like, I slap your ass, that’s okay, that’s playing rough.  At least, there’s ways it could be less okay, but anyway.  I slap your face, that’s—maybe it don’t hurt any worse, but it feels much worse.  To me.  That ain’t playing rough, that’s. . . _beating_ you.  And I won’t do that.  I’m not that guy.”

“Okay,” Fraser said.  “That’s a good example, actually.  Because I think most people, whether they like the act itself or not, have a social and emotional understanding that being slapped on the face is inherently different than being slapped on the buttocks with equal or even greater force.  If you spat on your hand and then shook mine, that’s completely different from spitting in your hand and then rubbing it on my face.  One seals a deal, the other indicates contempt.”

Ray nodded vigorously, his muscles relaxing.

“Yeah.  Although—see, that’s what I mean about the spanking thing, too.  It can go either way, depending on how you. . . _why_ you’re doing it, maybe?  Stella wouldn’t go anywhere near it, but it wasn’t about the pain, it was the. . .symbolism.”  Ray’s face went hot; talking about your exes in bed was totally tacky and Stella would clean his clock if she knew he was telling tales on her.

“Understandable.  Many women, particularly of Stella’s general age, have extremely negative feelings about this kind of sex, especially if it holds no personal appeal.  Those who do find it arousing are frequently ambivalent about acting upon those feelings.”

“Stella was all about _not_ wanting to be put down.”  Ray shrugged.  “Which, she spent—still does, I guess—way too much time around men who are always trying to put her down, on the job and everything, so you can’t blame her.  Not that _I_ ever wanted to put her down, but I ain’t never been Prince Charming and you better believe I was even less civilized in high school.  Um, but anyway.  Kind of not the point.  Sorry.”

“That’s all right,” Fraser said.  “It’s the kind of conversation that can’t help but lead one to reflect on past relationships.”

Ray nodded.

“So. . .that’s the thing, I guess.  The line.  I can play rough; I can’t. . .beat on you.  Not even if you want me to.”

Fraser nodded against Ray’s shoulder.

“And I don’t want to be criticized for personality traits.”

Ray was startled for a moment until he realized that Fraser was reviewing _all_ the lines, making it formal, maybe.

“Yeah, deal,” he said.

He disentangled his right arm, held up his hand where Fraser could get a good view of it, licked his own palm deliberately, and then extended the hand to Fraser.  Fraser leaned forward and also licked Ray’s palm, then shook Ray’s hand.

Laughing, Ray squirmed around until he could reach Fraser’s mouth with his own.

“C’mere,” he said, and kissed him.  Fraser kissed him back, and nobody tried to be in control of anything.

Normally Ray would have taken the opportunity to start something—Saturday morning, kissing in bed, obvious course of action, especially since he hadn’t forgotten how Fraser had gotten all squirmy when they were talking about stuff he liked.  But he wasn’t sure he wanted to start something quite so. . .challenging. . .on an empty stomach and uncaffeinated.  So instead, he murmured between kisses, “Hey, Ben?”

“Mmm?”

“What do you think about pancakes?”  He kissed Fraser some more, running his hands over his hair.  “We can collect Dief, maybe check out the park?”

Fraser huffed a laugh.

“Assuming Diefenbaker even made it home to the Consulate.  I believe he had some negotiations and love songs of his own to attend to last night.”

“Wolf sure gets around.”  Ray pushed himself into a sitting position and tugged Fraser up as well.  “Supposed to be nice out today; good day for communing with nature, what little we got.  And then, later on. . .”  He leaned forward to kiss Fraser’s ear, then murmured, “Maybe I’ll tell you what you can do for me, huh?”

“It all sounds delightful, Ray,” Fraser said agreeably.  “In fact, that last part sounds downright. . .incendiary,” he added in a low, intent tone that made Ray shiver and almost change his mind about not just jumping Fraser’s bones here and now.

“Okay,” he said, sliding out of bed and scrounging around for a towel, trying to sound cheerful and not nervous.  It wasn’t a big deal, really, as long as he didn’t _think_ about it too hard. . . “But right now, what you’ve got to do is get some coffee and food into me before I pass out.  You want dibs on the shower?”

Fraser made an uncharacteristically lazy gesture for Ray to go first, then flopped back on the bed.

Ray blinked, then grinned.  Fraser could talk all he wanted about being chipper after a _night of passion_ , but Ray had never seen him act so fucked-out before.  This was different, all right; this was the right stuff.

He flicked his towel in Fraser’s direction and headed off to the shower, whistling.


	4. Chapter 4

They spent the day doing regular Saturday-type stuff.  They retrieved Dief and some more clothes for Fraser from the Consulate, then went to Brigid’s Diner for the brunch special.  By that point, Ray had honestly almost forgotten about the whole sex thing—well, not _forgotten_ , but put it to the back of his mind.  But then there was this moment when he glanced up from his pancakes and caught Fraser looking at him in this funny, speculative way that made Ray wonder exactly what he was speculating about.  Which made it really hard to go back to eating his pancakes like this was just a normal Saturday instead of a day that he’d promised to tell Fraser. . .to let him. . .to _make_ him. . .  But by the time Ray pulled it together enough to glance at Fraser again without actually blushing, Fraser was pouring syrup on his last pancake, talking about the effect of climate change on maple syrup production and looking just like his regular self.  
  
After brunch, they hit the park, where they went for a run and then lounged around on the grass, watching Dief chase pigeons and make friends with small children and terrorize yap-dogs.  The whole time, Ray’s mind kept drifting to last night and that morning and what they were planning to do later.  Because it did require a plan—it required _Ray_ to have a plan, which normally, Ray was more about letting things develop naturally and trusting his instincts, but this was not normal or instinctive.  Plus, it involved more. . .management than your average roll in the hay.  So there he was, half-listening to Fraser’s chat about the social behaviors of wolves versus dogs, throwing in a comment here and there, trying to rile Fraser up in a friendly kind of way, while half his brain was trying to come up with some kind of game-plan involving orders and spanking and Jesus God, he couldn’t quite believe he was actually _thinking_ these thoughts, on _purpose._  But every once in a while, Fraser would flick him a look from under his eyelashes, a _smoky_ look that made Ray’s palms get all sweaty, thinking about what Fraser might be thinking about.  
  
Fraser suggested hitting the gym after lunch, but Ray didn’t feel like facing a punching bag, not today, so he convinced Fraser that it was too nice a day to waste inside.  Instead, they took Ray’s car out to the carwash on Washington where they let you do it yourself, and only got each other a little bit wetter than the minimum unavoidable amount, because Fraser was pretending to be a responsible adult and Ray was too distracted to horse around.  After they got the car squared away, he let Fraser drag him to the farmer’s market, where they argued about eggplant versus zucchini until Ray pointed out that he was not going to go broke if he sprung for both.  Plus, Fraser got some white onions, for reasons Ray did not at all understand, but they made Fraser happy, which just went to show that he could be an awfully cheap date.  
  
When they got back to Ray’s place, it got a lot harder to put the whole sex thing out of his mind, because there they were.  But the idea of just suddenly turning to Fraser out of blue and asking him to _be good_ was. . .well, it was hard to get up the nerve to do it, was what it was.  
  
And Fraser wasn’t really giving Ray much in the way of signals to go on, now.  Was he nervous?  Afraid Ray wasn’t going to follow through?  Waiting for Ray to get off his ass and get the show on the road already?  Or had he suddenly changed his mind and decided the whole thing was a stupid mistake?  Ray knew that wasn’t real likely—well, his _brain_ knew that, anyway—but the thought didn’t help his jitters any.  
  
So he stalled, figuring they might as well get the whole dinner thing out of the way first.  They cooked up some pasta and red sauce with the veggies plus a couple of cans of tomatoes that Fraser found lurking behind the Frooty-Os in Ray’s cabinet, because Fraser had this weird thing for making spaghetti, even in situations where it didn’t make any sense.  Ray had never figured out if it was just that Fraser didn’t know how to cook much else, or some crazy Fraser-logic, but hey, Ray liked pasta.  Fraser seemed to be his usual, efficient, slightly wacky Fraserish self, which was reassuring in a way, but also made Ray wonder if he’d maybe dreamed the dazed, frantic man who had begged Ray to make him come the night before.    

Dief gobbled his share of dinner and then took off down the fire escape with a look that said he had better things to do with his Saturday night than watch Fraser wash dishes and Ray work himself up into a nervous breakdown.  Ray figured he’d better make a move soon, or they’d have to turn on the TV or start a chess game or something, and there was no way he was going to be able to spit out this kind of proposition while trying to decide whether to move his knight to Q4.

He still couldn’t get a read on Fraser, though, which would have been bad enough if Ray was just looking to start up some regular old fun, but was killing him dead right now because no way could he ask Fraser to _be good_ if there was a chance Fraser was going to say _No,_ and anyway, it sounded weird and crude in his head, and who the hell would say _Yes_ to a line like that blurted out in the middle of the living room out of nowhere anyway?

 _Get a grip,_ he told himself, _You wouldn’t just ask him “Hey, want to fuck?” either.  Use a little fucking finesse._

He took a couple of breaths to try to calm his fidgeting and wandered over to the stereo to put on some mood music.  Then he headed over to the couch, deliberately slowing his steps: easy, casual, inviting.  He flopped down and draped one arm along the back of the couch, catching Fraser’s eye with a smile.

Fraser smiled back, looking oddly wary.

“The sauce turned out quite well this time, I thought,” he said.  “I think using white rather than yellow onions really made all the difference.”

“Yeah, it was—” Ray mentally tripped over _good._ “—Real tasty.  I don’t know from onions, but something definitely went right.”  He patted the back of the couch.  “You going to sit down?”

“Certainly,” Fraser agreed, and he sat down next to Ray, their thighs touching.

Ray slid his arm around Fraser’s shoulders, pulling him in for something in between a hug and a cuddle.  Fraser leaned against him.

“Game?” Fraser asked.

“Huh?”  Ray was so wrapped up in thinking about the sex thing that he almost missed what Fraser had said in the first place, and then he wasn’t sure if Fraser was proposing to play a game, or watch one, or play a _different_ kind of game, or asking if _Ray_ was game. . .

“Is there a game on?” Fraser asked patiently.

“Yeah, sure,” Ray said, nuzzling Fraser’s temple.  “Question is, is anyone here actually interested in watching it?”

“That depends entirely on what our other entertainment options might be,” Fraser said.  “I believe _East of Eden_ is showing on the classics station.”

Ray sighed, letting his breath blow along Fraser’s ear.  He slid his hand up Fraser’s far shoulder until he could brush Fraser’s jaw with his thumb.

“Well, I guess that’s _an_ option.”

“It’s a _James Dean_ option, Ray,” Fraser said.  “With Julie Harris, atop the Ferris wheel.”  Fraser sighed over the romance of it all and Ray seriously had no idea what the fuck was going on here.  Maybe _Fraser_ was the one playing games.

“Didn’t know you had a thing for James Dean.  He your idea of a good time on a Saturday night?”

“Were he alive, he would be around my father’s age, so I would think not.”  Fraser hesitated.  “Also, if the rumors about him were true, I think our tastes would have been. . .incompatible.”

Ray opened his mouth to say something about how James Dean supposedly swung both ways, when that little hesitation of Fraser’s clicked, and. . .okay, he was surprised Fraser knew about _those_ rumors, but he was really going to have to get over being surprised by shit like that one of these days.  He wasn’t sure whether Fraser was trying to say he didn’t get turned on by cigarette burns, or just that he wouldn’t want to be the one _giving_ them, but either way, Ray was _not_ going to think about that.  The important point was, that leading comment and the little hesitation before it were _evidence_ , in favor of the theory that Fraser was afraid Ray had gotten cold feet.

 _All right then.  Stop thinking so fucking much and just do it._   He slid his other hand over Fraser’s waist, then slipped it under his sweater.

“Well, we can watch the movie if you’re so hot for it,” he said.  “But I got to tell you, I had other plans in mind.”  He kissed the edge of Fraser’s ear, then flicked his tongue into its center.  “What do you say, Ben?” he whispered.  “You want to be good for me?”

Fraser’s eyes closed as he tilted his head against the back of the couch, baring his throat to Ray; the muscles moved as he swallowed.  Ray saw tension he hadn’t even realized Fraser was carrying drop off his face, leaving behind an expression that looked like relief.  Fraser opened his eyes again.

“I’d like that very much, Ray,” he said softly.  And then, so quietly Ray might have missed the words if he hadn’t been looking right at Fraser, “Thank you.”

Ray couldn’t breathe for a second; those soft words knocked the wind right out of him and all he could do was look at Fraser’s relaxed, open face.  He felt like Dorothy walking out of black-and-white-world into color. . .or, no, it was like he was watching that happen to _Fraser_.

He dipped his head and kissed Fraser’s throat, then ran his tongue along it. 

“Okay,” he said, quiet but with a hint of steel.  “This is what’s going to happen.  You’re going to go into the bedroom, and you’re going to strip.  Everything off.  Then you stand at the foot of the bed, and you put your hands flat on the mattress, and you wait for me.  You don’t move until I get there.  You understand?”

“I understand. . .Ray,” Fraser said, with just a hint of hesitation before Ray’s name.  Ray took his hands off of Fraser, who stood up and moved purposefully off to the bedroom.

Ray blew out a breath and cracked his neck.  _Okay, here we go. . ._

He went to the bathroom and took his time puttering around in there, doing what he needed to do, cleaning his hands and ( _hell, why not?_ ) brushing his teeth.  When he figured he’d stalled long enough to make Fraser feel like he was actually waiting, Ray made his way to the bedroom.  He slipped inside, closing the door behind him.

Fraser was exactly where Ray had told him to be, doing what Ray had told him to do: naked, leaning over the foot of the bed, his hands flat on the mattress, shoulder-width apart.  The sight of Fraser’s body displayed like that in the soft light coming in from the street damn near took Ray’s breath away.  But as nice as the view was, he switched on a light.  Mood lighting was romantic and all, but he really needed to see what he was doing, here.

“Good,” he said as he walked up behind Fraser.  “I’m glad to see you can follow basic instructions.” 

He made a little half-circle around Fraser, inspecting him like the hard-ass officer in a war flick.  Fraser had a serious boner, Ray was relieved to see.  He also had a really nice body, which Ray already knew, but he’d never looked at it in this position before.  He felt like just putting his hands all over Fraser—and hey, this was about Ray doing what he wanted, supposedly.  So he took a moment to put both hands on Fraser’s waist, feeling the warm, smooth skin before running them slowly, firmly up over Fraser’s ribs and shoulder blades, then back down to the small of his back.

He let his right hand linger on Fraser’s ass as he straightened up, saying, “Okay.  You know what I’m going to do to you now, don’t you?”

“Whatever you want, Ray,” Fraser said quietly but clearly.

“That’s right,” said Ray.  _Damn it, rules of the game._   “And what I want right now is to give your ass a good smacking.  And I don’t want you to move while I’m doing it.  I don’t want to hear a sound out of you, either.”  That last part was a total lie, but he had to give Fraser something to work for, and what else was he going to say: _I want to hear how much you like it_? 

“You can answer if I ask you a question,” he added.  “Otherwise, zip it.”

Fraser gave absolutely no sign that he’d heard a word Ray had said.  He just waited silently.

Ray licked his lips, cocked his elbow, and gave Fraser a smack across the ass.  It was barely a tap—he couldn’t help pulling the blow.  He made the second one a lot harder: it sounded like a cap going off and stung his palm a little, but Fraser didn’t twitch or make a sound.  Just like Ray’d told him to.  Of course.

Reminding himself that there was no way he could seriously hurt Fraser, and that Fraser would break orders and call it off if he wasn’t having fun ( _He would, right? No means no. . ._ ), Ray planted his feet and put his shoulder into it, trying not to hit the same spot all the time.  He found a rhythm, not too fast: this wasn’t about speed, he wasn’t trying to knock Fraser down.  He wanted him to. . .savor it, although that was a weird word to use.

As Ray kept. . .well, he could only think of it as _working Fraser’s ass over_. . .Fraser maintained his position, not budging except for the barely noticeable stiffening of his arms.  He kept silent, too, but between strokes, Ray could hear him breathing heavily.

Ray hadn’t been keeping count, but as far as he could tell, Fraser could keep doing this all night.  He maybe should have thought more about how he was going to decide when it was time to move on to the next part of the plan.  He paused and leaned over Fraser, letting the crotch of his jeans rub up against Fraser’s reddened ass as he threaded his fingers into Fraser’s hair.  He pulled Fraser’s head back—not roughly, although it couldn’t have been the most comfortable angle—to get a look at his face.

Fraser didn’t look completely blissed out, but he was clearly well on his way.  His eyes were closed, his cheeks flushed, and he’d caught a corner of his lower lip in his teeth.  Ray’s breath caught; he rocked his hips against Fraser’s ass, just once, but it felt good.  He ran his thumb over Fraser’s lower lip, tugging a little at the skin where Fraser was biting it.

Fraser finally made a sound, a choked off moan that was just a little bit more than a sigh as he dropped his jaw to give his lip over to Ray’s thumb.

“Oh, yeah. . .” Ray sighed.  He tightened his fingers in Fraser’s hair as he slid his thumb over Fraser’s lip, into his mouth, back again.  “Yeah, you want to give it to me, you’ve got to give it to me, come on, tell me now, what do you want to give me?”

“Oh, God, Ray,” Fraser said.  “Everything.  Anything you want.  Just take it, Ray.  Please.  Take it all.”  The desperate longing in his voice started Ray’s heart hammering.

“Oh, I will,” whispered Ray unevenly.  “Don’t you worry.  Nobody’s going anywhere ’till I’ve got what I came for.”  Which didn’t even make sense, since they were in Ray’s bedroom and nobody was going anywhere at all, but fuck it, making sense was not really the point, here.

Fraser’s hands clutched at the bedspread, but he didn’t say anything.  At least not out loud.  He was panting now, and with every third breath or so gave another one of those choked-off moans that went straight to Ray’s cock.

Ray pulled back to stand over Fraser again.

“Let’s see,” he said in his interrogation room voice, the calm-before-the-storm one.  “Since you did such a good job taking what I gave you just now, I’m thinking maybe you deserve some kind of reward for that.”  He stripped off his T-shirt and threw it beside the bed, far enough forward that Fraser could see it fall.  “What do you think?” he asked, soft and edged.  “You deserve a reward?  You good enough for that?”

“I hope so, Ray,” Fraser said, nearly whispering.  “I hope I was good enough for you.”

“You were good,” Ray told him, brushing a hand over Fraser’s hair.  “And because you were so good, I’m going to give you something.”

Fraser opened his eyes and craned his neck to look up at Ray.  He bit his lower lip again.

Ray let his left hand drift down to the base of Fraser’s neck, resting just above his shoulder blades.  Suddenly, he grabbed Fraser’s right wrist, yanking it hard enough to jerk Fraser’s hand out from under him.  At the same time, he shoved Fraser with his other hand, forcing his chest down onto the mattress.  Fraser turned his face to the right as he went down, so he ended up with his cheek pressed against the mattress, breathing hard through his half-open mouth. 

Ray captured Fraser’s other wrist, but then realized he had a problem: he could either keep hold of Fraser’s wrists, or actually do something to him, but not both at the same time.  He shook his head, snorting softly.

 _That’s what they invented handcuffs for,_ he thought, then stopped short as it struck him that given what they were already doing, that maybe wasn’t so much of a joke.  _I like being held down. . ._ Did Fraser also like being _tied_ down?  Ray shook his head again, this time to make himself focus. 

“Hands over your head,” he told Fraser.  “Both of them.  Keep them there.”

Fraser carefully put his hands directly above his head, stretching his arms to their full length, shoulder-width apart.  He spread his fingers and turned his palms outward as much as he could, as if trying to ask for more direction without actually saying anything out loud.

Ray wondered if there was some particular thing Fraser wanted, or thought Ray might want, but he couldn’t think of anything especially interesting to do with the position of Fraser’s hands.  Unless maybe. . .Remembering his thought about handcuffs, Ray leaned over Fraser, took one of his wrists in each hand, and laid them down, right crossed over left.  Then he kissed the top one, because he felt like it.  Fraser moaned at that, and while it wasn’t particularly loud, this time he made no effort to hold it back.  The sound pulled an answering moan out of Ray. 

“Good,” he said softly, as he bent to kiss the back of Fraser’s neck.  “That’s good, Ben.  You just keep your hands like that.”

Ray backed off again, stood all the way up.  He looked down at Fraser for a second: the pale skin of his back, his ass still pinker than the rest, the bullet scar marring his lower back.  He rested his hands on Fraser’s ass for a second, considering how to play this.  He hadn’t thought this part out, really, and yeah, he’d said it was going to be a reward, but it felt weird to just lay into Fraser without any warning, especially now that he’d lost his momentum.  
  
He ran his hands down the outside of Fraser’s legs, dropping into a crouch at the foot of the bed.  He took his time, enjoying the feel of the muscles, the rough hair over smooth skin.  With two fingers, he traced the edges of the scars on Fraser’s legs—knife, knife, bullet, all on the left, plus some smaller ones whose causes Ray couldn’t identify.  Fraser shivered slightly under Ray’s touch, and Ray could feel the hair under his fingertips stand up as he gave Fraser goosebumps.  Smiling, Ray rose to his feet, dragging his fingers upward, digging in just a little.  He rested both palms on Fraser’s ass again; the L of his left hand made a perfect frame for the scar at the base of Fraser’s spine.

“You know what you need?” he said in a casual-but-not-really tone.

“No, Ray,” Fraser said meekly.

“I’m thinking you need some kind of mark to balance out this one,” said Ray, brushing his thumb across the scar.  “I’m thinking you need me to leave my mark on you.” His right thumb mirrored the gesture on the other side of Fraser’s spine.

Fraser moaned again, but it wasn’t a good moan this time.

“No,” he said.

The word was so unexpected it took Ray a second to make sense of it.  Then he froze, his heart pounding.  He removed his hands carefully, like Fraser was injured and jostling him might hurt.

“Talk to me,” he said softly.  “You need me to stop this?”

“That mark. . .not like that,” Fraser gasped out, sounding a little distressed but not totally freaked out, thank God.  “Want your mark, but not to. . .balance the other.”

“Okay, okay.  Not like that.” Ray grasped Fraser’s shoulder, firmly but not roughly, hoping the touch would reassure Fraser instead of upsetting him more.  “I don’t need it to be like that.  All right?”

“I. . .” Fraser started but trailed off.

“Tell me,” said Ray, keeping his voice low and steady.  He had to be the calm one, here.  He wasn’t sure how badly he’d screwed up, or exactly what the problem was—but he should’ve known better than to play games with a scar like that.  Scars always carried emotional baggage, and Ray knew that Fraser had gotten this one from being shot by Vecchio, which had to mean messier baggage than usual.  He didn’t know the whole story, just that it had happened during a case involving someone Fraser had previously arrested, who’d tried to frame both him and Vecchio, but even that much wasn’t exactly pretty.  Dumb, dumb mistake, but he couldn’t beat himself up about that right now, he needed to take care of Fraser.

“I _hate_ that mark,” Fraser said vehemently.  “I love _you_.”

“And I love you,” Ray returned, startled.  “I love you so much it hurts, sometimes.”

“Yes,” Fraser agreed immediately.  “It _hurts_.  Like I _want_ it to hurt.”

Ray bit his tongue to keep from blurting out, _No_.  _No, I don’t want you to hurt, I don’t want to hurt you, why do you need it to hurt?_   Instead, he took a breath and said, “You want to feel it?  Want me to make you feel it?”

“Oh, God, please, Ray?” Fraser pleaded, but there was something different about his tone, not quite like the way he’d sounded when he was begging before. . .It was the way Fraser said his name, Ray realized.  Every time Fraser had called him _Ray_ before, when they were doing this, he’d made it sound like a title, or some kind of. . .supplication.  But this time, it just sounded like. . . _Ray_ , his name.  Like Fraser might say it, lying in his arms in bed.

“Yes.  You got it, Ben.”  Ray kissed Fraser’s cheek, then his temple.  “I’m going to make you feel it, I’m going to fucking write it on your skin so that you can’t forget.”

“Thank you, Ray,” Fraser sighed.  His voice was back to the dreamy quality from earlier, especially when he said Ray’s name, but Ray couldn’t stop to think about that. 

“Go on, get all the way on there,” he said.  As soon as Fraser stretched out on the bed, still face-down, Ray  brought one knee up onto the mattress and rested his left hand on Fraser’s shoulder, letting him take a little of Ray’s weight.

He pinched a bit of flesh over Fraser’s ribcage and twisted hard, pretending his fingers were unscrewing a bottle cap or loosening a nut.  Fraser cried out wordlessly. 

Ray tightened his jaw, chose another spot, and pinched Fraser again.

“You feel that?” he hissed.

“I feel it,” Fraser gasped.  “It feels so good, Ray.”

“You’d better damn well feel it.  I’m going to leave my fingerprints _all over you_ , so you won’t forget whose hands have been on you.”  He shifted his weight to pinch Fraser’s left shoulder right next to the shoulder blade, digging in a little with his fingernails as he twisted the skin.

Fraser’s hips started moving against the bed as he moaned again, louder.  Ray swung his other leg up over Fraser to straddle him, pressing his denim-covered ass down hard against Fraser’s bare one.

“This is how much I fucking love you,” he told Fraser as he left one red mark after another on Fraser’s pale shoulders and ribs, keeping his hands away from the small of the back.  “You’re going to feel it tomorrow—on Monday, when you’re wearing your uniform and it rubs up against you here, you’ll remember how much I fucking love you, you won’t be able to forget, not for a fucking second, won’t forget that you’re mine—”

And shit, that was bad, that was way too close to the line Ray had promised Stella—promised himself—never to cross, and also way too close to all the things you don’t ever say if you don’t want your lover to realize what a clingy pathetic loser you are.  But Ray obviously wasn’t in control of his words any more, so he stopped himself from saying anything worse by flattening himself on top of Fraser and biting him hard on the shoulder.

“Yours, Ray,” Fraser moaned, still writhing against the bed in spite of Ray’s weight.  “Let me be yours always.”  

The words forced a groan out of Ray’s chest.  He buried the sound in Fraser’s shoulder, shoving his hips down against him.

“Yes,” he whispered close in Fraser’s ear as he ground against him.  “Always—always mine—want you so fucking much—want you to—show me, give me, give me give me give me—”

Fraser nodded frantically, not saying anything as he pushed back against Ray.  The pressure of Fraser’s ass and his own jeans on Ray’s cock was riding the edge of uncomfortable, and he just hoped that getting his ass scraped was doing it for Fraser, because Ray was not fucking well stopping to get his pants off now.  Fraser needed this too badly—Ray needed it too badly—he was losing it, losing himself in the urgency, losing his words, losing control.  Couldn’t lose it completely, though.  He was in the driver’s seat and he had to make sure— _God, yes more_ —Fraser got what he needed.  Fraser was moving under Ray, moaning softly, he wanted this, needed it, needed something, was this, was he, God, Ray just needed—

“Need you—fuck—need to—hear you, see you— _something_ —” Ray got a hand free and yanked a fistful of Fraser’s hair.  “ _Show me,_ damn you.”

Fraser twisted his neck and shoulders so Ray could see his face, and Fraser was showing him _everything_.  Fraser’s need had stripped him bare and it was all for Ray.

“Fuck, yes,” Ray gasped.  He scrambled for the words—not what he wanted to say, but what Fraser wanted to hear.  “You’re so good—so good to me—good for me—” And it was true, maybe not exactly the way Fraser wanted it to mean, but in all kinds of other ways, it _was_.  “Good, Ben, you’re good—”

“ _Please_.” The word was nearly a shout, but still not a demand.

It pushed Ray over the edge; he came with a choked cry and fell onto Fraser, burying his face in Fraser’s hair as the last wave washed over him.

Fraser moved restlessly under Ray.

“Please,” he said again.

 _Fuck.  What—?_   Ray tried to pull himself together enough to figure out what Fraser needed.  He rolled off of Fraser, took him by the shoulder and rolled him over too, to lie on his side, his back to Ray’s front.  Propping himself up on his elbow, still breathing hard, Ray pressed himself against Fraser’s back and took hold of his cock.

“What is it?” he murmured as he started working Fraser’s cock.  “You got something else for me? That what you’re trying to tell me?”

“Yes, Ray,” Fraser gasped, struggling with the words.  “Have I been good for you?”

“Oh, yeah,” Ray told him.  “You’ve been real good, you did just like I told you and gave me what I wanted, you’ve been so good, now you’ve just got to do this one last thing for me, Ben, come on, it’s okay, I want you to, I want to see you, come on, be good for me. . .”

“Thank you,” Fraser groaned, pushing his cock harder into Ray’s hand.  Ray tightened his grip and picked up the pace, even though he hadn’t exactly been going easy in the first place.  Fraser kept chanting, “Thank you,” over and over again, sometimes adding Ray’s name in that close-to-worshipful tone.  Biting his lips, Ray kept his hand moving.

“Come on,” he whispered against the rhythm of Fraser’s words.  “Be good for me, now, I know you can, give it up, give it up to me. . .”

Fraser went completely silent, his jaw locked open as he came in Ray’s hand, his body shaking hard against Ray.  Ray stroked him gently a few more times, then wrapped his arm around Fraser’s chest and held him tightly.

“That’s right,” he murmured.  “That’s good, you’ve been so good tonight.”  He kissed Fraser’s shoulder softly.  “You’ve been so good for me.”

Fraser’s breathing slowed as he relaxed into Ray’s arms.

“It’s what I want most,” he said.  “To be good for you, Ray.”

“I know.  I know that.”  He didn’t get it.  He didn’t get whether it was actually true or just some kind of layer on top of what Fraser actually wanted.  But he got that it at least _felt_ like truth to Fraser, here and now.  “Don’t worry.  I know, and you are.  It’s all good.”

He stroked Fraser’s chest, slow and easy, letting him wind down some.  After a little while, he kissed Fraser on the ear and said, “Okay, Ben, it’s time to stop now.  You take your own time, uh, coming up.  I’m just going to stay here and hold you for a while.”

“Thank you, Ray,” Fraser said.  The words were polite but Fraser was still off in his own little world.

Ray lay for a while listening to Fraser breathe and letting his mind drift a little.  He had a lot to think about, but he didn’t feel up to tackling it right yet.  He couldn’t space out completely, though, because he was still on watch until Fraser came out of his _—_ _subspace_ , that’s what he’d called it.  Except, he didn’t seem to be coming out of it, or at least if he was, Ray couldn’t tell.  And it had been a while.

Ray pushed up on his elbow and gave Fraser’s chest a light tap with his finger tips.

“Ben? You all right?”

“Yes, Ray,” Fraser said.  “Very all right.”

“Okay.”  All right, but not. . .back.  Ray tried not to panic as he thought back to their conversation that morning.  They’d _talked_ about this, Fraser had said Ray could just tell him it was time to stop, but Ray had told him and Fraser wasn’t getting the message.  He’d also said he could get out of it himself if he had to, but Jesus, Ray should be able to get this right, this wasn’t supposed to be the hard part.

“Ben,” he said, firmly, raising his voice a little.  “We’re done now.  It’s time for you to come back.”  And then, remembering how he’d put it last night, he added, “I’m telling you: we’re done.”

Fraser nodded slowly, then blinked a couple of times.

“Right.  Thank you, Ray,” he said, and it was definitely Benton Fraser back in the room with Ray.

“I think you said that already,” said Ray, then hoped that had come out sounding like teasing and not poking fun.  

“I expect I did,” Fraser said, apparently unoffended.  “But now my gratitude is not clouded by passion.”

 _Or by weird hypnosis stuff,_ Ray added silently as he gave Fraser’s bicep a squeeze.  “Okay, well, you’re welcome, then.  And thank you, too.”

Fraser looked at him for a few long moments.

“Ray, I. . .realize that this is not necessarily what you signed on for.  And I hope you realize just how deeply I appreciate your willingness to direct your considerable talents and energies into giving me this.”

“I do,” Ray said.  “Get that, I mean.  And it’s good to know that.”  He gave Fraser’s arm another squeeze.  “It’s just. . .I’m not doing it ’cause I want you to thank me, you know?”

“I know,” Fraser said soberly.  “You’re doing it because you love me.  And I wish I could give you something of commensurate value in return.”

“You are,” Ray responded.  That was something he knew without having to think about it.

“I dearly hope that’s true,” Fraser said.  Then he smiled.  “Of course it’s true, even if I can’t imagine what it is.  You would never lie to me.”

Ray froze in reflexive panic _—_ _It wasn’t me, I didn’t do it, I swear_.  He opened his mouth to reassure Fraser that of course he wouldn’t ever lie to him, but then his brain started frantically trying to flip through a year’s worth of conversations, to figure out if that was true.  Ray lied all the time, sometimes without really meaning to, Fraser knew that.  And he certainly _had_ lied to Fraser in the past—mostly casual lies or self-defense-type lies _—_ which Fraser also knew.  But that was before.  Fraser wasn’t talking about that, he meant _now_ , and now. . .well, of course Ray wouldn’t lie to Fraser now, not about important stuff.  Not about this.  He was trying so fucking hard not to say anything he didn’t mean, and if he maybe wasn’t telling Fraser every thought that crossed his mind, well, that wasn’t the same thing.  Nobody went around telling people everything they thought; Fraser sure as hell wasn’t telling Ray everything _he_ was thinking.

Ray didn’t mean everything he’d said during the sex itself, but that wasn’t lying, either: that was putting on a show, and Fraser understood that.  He didn’t _want_ Ray to mean all of that stuff.  Did he?

Anyway, he hadn’t been lying to Fraser just now, which was the real point that Fraser maybe wasn’t entirely clear on and which was important for him to understand, although now Ray was so rattled it took him another couple of seconds to remember what the fuck he was supposed to be talking about.

“I mean it,” he told Fraser.  “You. . .I know it’s got to be hard for you to let me see you like this.  To show me. . .”  He shook his head, unable to find words for it.  “To give me what you’re giving.  And I do. . .I want that, you don’t know how much I want that.  For real.”

“Thank you, Ray,” Fraser said softly.  “Again,” he added with a little smile.  “But, aside from the encouraging things you’ve been saying while we’re doing. . .that. . .you really do want to see that side of me?”

“Fuck, yeah,” Ray breathed.  “I mean. . .I ain’t saying I’m totally comfortable with everything about it, or—or how things go down.  It’s still weird and new and there’s a lot I haven’t figured out yet.  But. . .you’re. . .beautiful, and the way you lay yourself out for me to see. . .yeah, I want to see you.  All of you.”

And he meant that, a hundred percent.  He just hoped he wouldn’t end up eating his words.  But he couldn’t imagine that anything _Fraser_ had inside him could be anything but beautiful.  Sometimes a weird or drive-you-up-the-wall kind of beautiful, okay.  But still.

Fraser looked away.

“You haven’t seen everything,” he said.  “I haven’t _told_ you everything.  About how I learned this about myself, or how I came to find that there was an entire subculture of people like me.”

“Yeah, okay,” said Ray.  Because yeah, he was going to have to get Fraser to tell him about that sometime, but this was not the time.  “But here’s the thing.  I trust you.  And that ain’t never steered me wrong yet.”

Fraser smiled at Ray. 

“But the journey isn’t always pleasant or what you expected.”

“Well, no,” Ray admitted.  He bit his lip as he gently rubbed Fraser’s shoulder.  “Sometimes not for you, either, huh?”

“Well, the unexpected is part of what makes the journey worthwhile,” Fraser said.  Ray had to chuckle a little at that.

“I hope you’re not expecting performance arson.  Don’t think I can live up to your standards of unexpected.”  He sighed.  “I am sorry, though.  About the thing with—with the scars.”

“Oh.”  Fraser looked a little surprised.  “How were you supposed to know that would disturb me?”

Ray shrugged, relieved that Fraser sounded so casual about it.

“But it did, so I’m sorry I did it,” he said, trying not to sound too deadly serious.

“Live and learn,” Fraser said lightly.  Then his face turned serious.  “There’s a story there, as I’m sure you can imagine.  But. . .I’m not really ready to talk about it, Ray.”  Fraser looked kind of sad and apologetic and even a little lost.

“That’s okay.”  Ray squeezed Fraser’s shoulder, then gave it a kiss.  “You don’t got to tell me.”

He wanted to know—well, he wanted to and he didn’t want to—and it kind of hurt that Fraser couldn’t trust him enough to tell him. . .But he squashed that feeling down.  This wasn’t about him.  Fraser would talk when he was good and ready, and if that day never came, well, Ray would just have to live with not knowing about it.

Fraser leaned his head down to nuzzle his chin on Ray’s hand.

“I rather think I do need to tell you.  Some day.  In a roundabout way, it’s part of why you’re here, doing this for me.”

“Okay.”  Ray pulled Fraser in close, not sure what else to say to that except, “Whenever you want.”

“And I should thank you again,” Fraser said.  “Because you faced a difficult situation and did exactly what you should’ve.”

Warmth flowed through Ray’s chest, easing the tightness there.

“Yeah?”

“It’s never easy when someone says no to something,” Fraser said.  “Sometimes, people don’t even realize that there’s a problem until it’s too late.  But you heard me, you listened to me, you took care of me.”

 _I want to take care of you,_ Ray wanted to say, but he thought maybe that wasn’t what Fraser wanted to hear right now, so instead he said, softly, “No means no.”

“Yes.  You didn’t seem to have any trouble with that part of it, either.  But you were also able to stop to assess the situation and redirect your words and actions in deference to my feelings,” Fraser said.  Which was an oddly formal little speech, but Ray had the idea by now that sometimes when Fraser got formal like that it just meant that what he was saying was more important than he wanted to let on.    

Ray nodded.  That had been a fucking terrifying couple of seconds, there, but Fraser didn’t need to hear how freaked out Ray had been, any more than he needed Ray making a big deal over Fraser’s vulnerability after the fact.

“I got your back.  That’s my job.  In here, out there.  And you helped me out.  Told me what I needed to know.”

“I already trusted you more than I trusted any of the others.  Now I trust you even more.”

Ray closed his eyes and buried his nose in Fraser’s hair and just let the feelings wash over him: joy and panic and gratitude and tenderness all whirled up together in a blender, so intense it was almost painful.

“Listen,” he whispered when he could do it without his voice shaking.  “We’re going to do this, okay?  No, it ain’t what I signed on for originally, but I’m signing on now.”

“Are you sure about that? Now that you’ve actually seen it and done it?” Fraser asked.

“I’m sure.”  Ray kissed the back of Fraser’s neck.  “Cross my heart and hope to die.  So don’t worry about it.  ’Kay?”

“I’ll try not to,” Fraser said.

“Okay, then.  ’Cause we all know how good you are at pretty much everything you put your mind to.”

Ray wasn’t betting that Fraser was actually going to stop worrying about it just because Ray told him to, because one thing Fraser was _not_ good at was letting go of things.  He’d just have to wear Fraser down by showing him that it really was okay, that Ray wasn’t going to flip out or be grossed out by Fraser and the things he wanted to do—to have Ray do to him—in bed.  Show him that Ray could give Fraser what he needed and not let him down.

He got up to put the lights out, then cuddled up to Fraser again, pulling the covers over them both.

 _We’re going to do this,_ he promised silently.  _I’m going to take care of you. It’s going to be good._


End file.
